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.V-  V 


tARY  HOURS; 

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"The  noblest  motive  is  the  public  good."   Vinjil. 


A  GIFT  FROM 


THE  WOEKS  OF 


WALTER   BAGEHOT 


M.  A.,    AND    FELLOW    OF    UNIVERSITY    COLLEGE,    LONDON 


WITH  MEMOIRS  BY  R.  H.  BUTTON 


NOW  FIRST  PUBLISHED  IN  FULL 


tmxraitcc 

OF  HARTFORD,   CONNECTICUT 


EDITED  BY  FORREST  MORGAN 
IN  FIVE  VOLUMES 

VOL.  I 


1891 


v.l 


Copyrighted,  1889,  by 

THE  TRAVELERS  INSURANCE  COMPANY, 

of  Hartford,  Conn. 


Copyrighted,  1891,  by  THE  TRAVELERS  INSURANCE  COMPANY. 


CONTENTS   OF  YOL.   I. 


PAGE 

Editor's  Preface    .......  i 

Memoir  of  Walter  Bagehot,  by  R.  H.  Button  (from  "Literary 

Studies")     .......      xxv 

Bagehot  as  an  Economist,  by  Robert  Giffen  (Fortnightly 

Review,  April  1,  1880)  .....  Ixiii 
Extracts  from  article  on  Oxford  (Prospective  Review,  October, 

1852)  .......  Ixxxv 

List  of  Alterations  .  xcv 


LITERARY   STUDIES. 

The   First  Edinburgh   Reviewers  (National  Review,  October, 

1825)            ./.....  1 

Hartley  Coleridge  (Prospective  Review,  October,  1852)            .  45 

Percy  Bysshe  Shelley  (National  Review,  October,  1856)        .  81 

Beranger  (National  Review,  October,  1857)      .            .             .  135 

Mr.  dough's  Poems  (National  Review,  October,  1862)           .  175 
Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  and  Browning ;  or,  Pure,  Ornate,  and 
Grotesque    Art   in   English    Poetry   (National   Review,  ' 

November,  1864)     ......  200 

Shakespeare  —  the  Man  (Prospective  Review,  July,  1853)        .  255 

John  Milton  (National  Review,  July,  1859)      .             .             .  303 
Lady   Mary   Wort-ley   Montagu    (National   Review,    January, 

1862)            .            .            .                         .                         .  352 

William  Cowper  (National  Review,  July,  1855)           .             .  387 

Appendix  (Translations)  ......  447 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE. 


THIS  EDITION  was  planned  and  begun  as  a  simple  reprint,  uniform 
and  indexed,  of  the  existing  editions  of  Bagehot's  works  ;  *  there 
was  then  no  thought  of  "editing"  the  text,  or  recognition  of  its 
extreme  necessity.  The  accidental  notice,  after  the  work  was  well 
under  way,  that  a  series  of  extracts  from  a  familiar  book  were  full 
of  errors,  led  first  to  an  attempt  to  verify  and  correct  all  quotations ; 
then,  as  attention  was  more  sharply  directed  to  the  text,  to  the 
discovery  that  Bagehot's  own  matter  was  in  almost  as  corrupt  a 
state  as  his  extracts  from  other  writers,  and  in  consequence  to  still 
further  examination  of  the  original  sources  of  his  facts,  —  which 
resulted  in  some  surprising  developments  ;  lastly,  to  a  collation  of 
his  original  review  articles  with  the  reprints  revised  by  himself,  —  a 
not  unfruitful  task.  Had  the  enormous  labor  involved,  and  the 
utter  impossibility  of  fully  accomplishing  the  design,  been  realized 
at  the  outset  (for  it  needed  several  years  of  exclusive  time,  while 
only  the  spare  moments  of  a  couple  of  busy  years  could  be  given 


*  Namely,  the  two  volumes  of  "Literary  Studies"  and  the  volume  of 
"  Biographical  Studies  "  (including  the  "  Letters  on  the  French  Coup  d'Etat "}, 
and  the  unfinished  "  Economic  Studies,"  edited  by  his  friend  and  school- 
fellow, Mr.  Hutton ;  and  the  scattered  volumes  "English  Constitution," 
"Physics  and  Politics,"  "Lombard  Street,"  "Depreciation  of  Silver,"  and 
"International  Coinage"  (from  the  Economist  of  1868,  as  the  first  reprinted 
edition  was  unobtainable  and  the  second  had  not  been  issued  ;  the  latter  is 
used  in  the  present  set).  To  this  edition  are  added  also  the  obituary  arti- 
cle on  John  Stuart  Mill  from  the  Economist,  to  fill  a  gap  in  the  "  Economic 
Studies";  Mr.  Hutton's  memoir  in  the  National  Cyclopaedia;  and  copious 
extracts  from  a  very  uneven  article  on  "  Oxford "  in  the  Prospective  linneic. 
Mr.  Hutton  judiciously  omitted  this  essay  from  his  collection,  —  as  a  whole 
It  is  not  only  obsolete,  but  (an  unknown  thing  in  Bagehot's  later  writings.) 
rather  tedious ;  yet  it  contains  in  spots  so  much  of  his  very  best  wit  and 
acute  sense  that  it  seemed  a  wrong  both  to  him  and  the  public  to  suppress 
it  entirely.  Especially  good  are  the  passages  on  the  use  and  influence  of 
the  higher  education  (though  even  this  has  another  side  which  he  neglects); 
and  the  closing  one  on  the  smoldering  fury  of  hate  in  the  English  mind 
toward  anything  papistic,  —  as  racy'  and  characteristic  a  bit  as  anything  he 
ever  wrote.  —  ED. 

VOL.  I.  — A  (i) 


11          THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO  S.  BAGEHOT. 

to  it,  and  many  mortifying  gaps  were  inevitable),  the  plan  would 
probably  have  been  confined  to  its  original  proportions ;  but  I 
believe  that  even  a  partial  success  will  be  welcomed  by  the  public, 
for  no  modern  writer  needed  the  service  so  badly,  and  there  was 
no  likelihood  of  its  being  undertaken  by  another. 

No  one  who  does  not  —  as  probably  no  one  save  a  possible 
future  editor  ever  will  —  compare  this  edition,  word  by  word,  with 
any  former  ones,  can  form  any  adequate  conception  of  the  shock- 
ing state  of  Bagehot's  text  as  heretofore  given  to  the  world ;  there 
is  nothing  even  remotely  approaching  it  in  the  case  of  any  other 
English  writer  of  high  rank  since  Shakespeare's  time.  This  reflects 
no  discredit  on  Mr.  Hutton,  who  simply  left  it  as  he  found 
it,  and  who  shows-  in  his  memoir  of  Bagehot  that  he  knew  it 
was  not  in  very  good  shape,  —  though  apparently  he  did  not  realize 
how  bad  it  was ;  but  I  think  it  does  reflect  a  good  deal  on  Bage- 
hot, who  could  have  saved  the  worst  things  by  the  most  casual 
glance  at  his  proofs,  and  who  evidently  never  even  looked  at  most 
of  them  at  all.  These  slips  cover  almost  the  entire  possible  range 
of  human  blunders,  and  are  sometimes  of  serious  moment. 

Perhaps  the  most  numerous  sort  resulted  from  misreading  by 
the  printers  of  Bagehot's  not  very  legible  handwriting,  perpetuated 
by  his  failure  to  correct  them.  Through  this,  some  of  the  review 
articles  are  perfect  museums  of  grotesque  errors.  Names  of  per- 
sons and  places  suffer  badly :  Horner  masquerades  as  Hume,* 
Croker  as  Crocker,  and  Daniel  Malthus  as  David ;  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu's^ country  seat  of  San  don  appears  as  London,  and  Lady 
Althorp's  home,  Wiseton,  as  Winton ;  and  so  on.  In  Horace  Wai- 
pole's  stinging  letter  on  Mary  "Wortley  Montagu,  "dirt"  is  changed 
to  "art";  in  one  of  Francis  Horner,  "  success  "  is  made  "sweep"; 
in  an  extract  from  "Eothen,"  "command"  is  printed  "commerce"; 
in  an  extract  from  Wordsworth  in  the  sketch  of  Crabb  Robinson, 
"Of  nature's  impress"  is  turned  to  "A  nation's  impress";  and  so 
on  ad  tedium,  —  in  most  cases  the  new  reading  being  perfect 
gibberish.  Diverting  examples  of-  this  are  near  the  beginning  of 
' '  Physics  and  Politics, "  and  the  last  page  but  one  of  the  ' '  Letters 
on  the  French  Coup  d'Etat,"  where  the  printers  had  serious  and 
unsuccessful  struggles  to  keep  "politics"  and  "polities"  separate, 
and  the  author  seems  not  to  have  helped  them  at  all.  But  noth- 
ing in  printed  literature  is  quite  as  ridiculous  as  the  extract  from 
the  "Prelude"  in  the  essay  on  Lord  Al thorp,  which  I  have  em- 
balmed for  a  wondering  world.  This  article,  published  about  the 


*  The  exact  places  of  these  mistakes  can  he  easily  found  by  the  index. 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE.  Ill 

time  of  Bagehot's  death,  is  in  a  little  the  worst  condition  of  all ; 
but  that  on  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  is  not  much  better.  Nor  is 
this  by  any  means  confined  to  extracts:  the  foot-notes  will  show 
more  than  one  case  where  the  sense  of  his  own  writing  is  de- 
stroyed by  a  misread  word  whose  correct  reading  is  easy  to  guess. 
In  this  list  belong  also  a  mass  of  mere  typographical  errors  and 
slips  of  the  pen  (as  George  III.  for  George  I.,  Queen  Anne  for 
George  II.,  etc.),  sometimes  of  a  most  annoying  kind;  for  instance, 
in  two  cases  a  misprinted  date  caused  a  long  search  for  a  quota- 
tion in  the  wrong  quarter. 

Another  remarkable  and  curiously  balanced  sort  consists  in  the 
misplacement  of  quotation  marks,  either  crediting  Bagehot  with 
the  writing  of  others  or  vice  versa;  there  are,  I  think,  just  the 
same  number  of  each.  For  instance,  a  half-page  of  Lady  Louisa 
Stuart's  is  printed  as  his  own  in  the  article  on  Mary  Wortley 
Montagu;  a  half -page  of  Lord  Mahon  in  that  on  William  Pitt; 
several  lines  of  Lord  Macaulay  in  "Lombard  Street"  (mangled 
as  usual) ;  and  there  are  one  or  two  more.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  partially  requites  Lady  Louisa  with  a  couple  of  lines,  and 
gives  some  to  Le  Marchant  in  the  sketch  of  Lord  Althorp  and  to 
Catlin  in  "Economic  Studies,"  and  there  are  other  instances. 

Again,  the  number  of  pases  where  the  sense  is  exactly  inverted 
by  the  misplacement  of  negatives  or  the  reversal  of  the  place  of 
alternatives  in  a  sentence  is  something  incredible  ;  I  have  kept 
no  exact  account,  but  there  must  be  well  toward  twenty  in  the 
five  volumes.  A  few  of  these  have  been  changed  outright  (and 
noted  in  the  table  of  alterations)  ;  but  in  general,  attention  has 
been  called  to  them  in  foot-notes. 

The  department  of  distorted  quotations  is  recruited  from  so 
many  different  sources  of  error  that  it  is  hard  to  know  where  to 
begin.  Of  course  inevitable  lapses  of  memory  are  the  chief  cause 
for  the  corrupt  state  of  minor  quotations  and  anecdotes.  No  mis- 
cellaneous writer  can  possibly  go  back  to  all  his  original  sources 
to  verify  his  "points,"  —  it  would  take  a  lifetime  to  write  a 
volume  in  any  such  way.  The  maxim  of  the  proof-room  is,  that 
quotations  are  always  to  be  assumed  as  wrong ;  and  it  is  curious 
how  seldom  the  fact  is  otherwise.  And  very  likely  Bagehot's 
memory  seems  to  me  to  have  worked  with  more  than  usual  crook- 
edness because  I  have  not  had  occasion  to  explore  the  maze 
of  any  other  man's ;  but  it  seems  impossible  that  any  one  elsf 
can  ever  have  remembered  so  many  non-existent  things,  or  so  often 
wrongly  accredited  his  quotations  or  introduced  them  with  total 
irrelevance  to  the  context.  The  list  of  these  is  long,  but  I  will  not 


iv        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

even  attempt  to  cito  them.  I  should  perhaps  add  to  this  list  a 
favorite  performance  of  his  which  is  quite  as  exasperating  to  an 
editor  as  the  worst  of  the  others,  —  citing  passages  from  a  first 
edition  which  were  expunged  in  later  ones,  but  without  hinting  at 
such  effacement ;  this  trick  in  the  cases  of  Mackintosh,  Montalem- 
bert,  and  Gibbon,  cost  several  days  of  wasted  time. 

But  the  abominably  corrupt  state  of  his  longer  quotations  — 
some  of  which  are  simply  miracles  of  mangling,  and  much  the 
greater  part  of  which  are  more  or  less  misquoted  —  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  bad  memory ;  for  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he 
trusted  solely  to  his  memory  for  whole  pages.  I  can  only  guess  at 
the  modus  operandi:  but  my  guess  is,  that  he  copied  his  extracts 
by  scribbling  off  the  catch-words,  trusting  to  his  memory  to  fill  out 
the  skeleton  when  he  prepared  his  copy  for  the  press,  and  never 
comparing  the  outline  with  the  original  (thus  often  leaving  out 
words,  phrases,  and  occasionally  even  whole  lines);  that  as  might 
be  expected,  his  memory  was  treacherous  when  the  time  came  to 
write  out  his  extracts  in  full ;  that  (which  is  certain)  the  printers 
made  mistakes  in  his  copy,  and  he  did  not  correct  them  ;  and  as  a 
result  (which  is  most  certain  of  all),  that  his  quoted  matter  cannot 
be  matched  in  the  language  for  (sometimes  absurd)  divergence  from 
the  original. 

It  would  seem  at  first  thought  that  there  would  be  no  trouble 
in  dealing  with  these  things, — that  the  only  thing  necessary  was  to 
restore  the  true  text,  if  it  could  be  found,  and  there  all  difficulty 
ended ;  but  in  fact  it  has  not  been  at  all  easy  to  decide  in  every 
case  what  to  do,  and  I  am  by  no  means  sure  I  have  invariably 
made  the  best  decision.  Many  of  the  alleged  quotations  could  not 
be  found  at  all,  even  when  every  attainable  scrap  of  an  author's 
published  works  or  words  was  at  hand.  In  some  of  these  cases  I 
can  definitely  prove  that  they  have  no  existence,  and  sometimes  can 
even  show  what  he  manufactured  his  "quotation"  out  of;  but  in 
far  the  greater  number  (and  a  list  of  the  undiscoverable  things 
which  seem  to  lie  easily  at  hand,  and  which  I  supposed  to  do  so 
till  after  thorough  and  fruitless  search,  would  excite  surprise)  I  can 
only  conjecture  that  he  has  credited  them  to  the  wrong  authors, 
and  have  either  passed  them  silently  or  transferred  the  problem 
to  the  reader  by  a  foot-note.  Sometimes  it  is  a  "made-up"  quota- 
tion, —  a  fiction  founded  on  fact,  so  to  speak  (there  are  instances 
of  this  in  the  articles  on  Sterne  and  Pitt,  and  elsewhere);  some- 
times the  "quotation"  gives  the  general  sense  of  the  original,  but 
in  a  totally  different  form  of  words  :  in  both  these  cases  foot-notes 
are  the  obvious  propriety.  But  between  the  latter  and  the  ones  so 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE. 


slightly  blundered  as  to  involve  only  silent  correction,  there  lie 
every  grade  of  mangling,  —  a  border-land  where  judgment  is  diffi- 
cult, and  I  have  sometimes  substituted  a  correct  form  where 
another  might  have  left  the  corrupt  form  standing  and  annotated 
it ;  I  can  only  say  that  in  no  case  of  the  sort  have  I  tampered 
with  Bagehot's  own  words,  and  in  nearly  every  one  I  have  called 
attention  to  the  great  difference  of  the  correct  quotation  from 
Bagehot's  text. 

That  the  source  of  every  quotation  has  been  given  whenever 
possible,  follows  of  course.  Apart  from  the  question  of  accuracy,  a 
reader  of  any  author  has  a  right  to  know  this,  in  order  to  exam- 
ine the  context  and  follow  the  author  in  his  track  of  reading ;  and 
judging  from  my  own  experience,  no  other  service  in  editing  save 
the  explanation  of  obscure  allusions  is  comparable  to  this,  nor  any 
lack  an  equal  hindrance  and  exasperation.  For  the  same  reason,  I 
have  indicated  where  it  was  feasible  the  main  sources  whence  he 
drew  the  facts  for  his  review  articles,  and  that  of  many  special 
biographic  or  historical  items.  My  object  has  been,  to  make  the 
volumes  as  handily  useful  to  the  least  scholarly  reader  as  might  be; 
I  have  assumed  that  many  would  be  glad  to  use  the  articles  as  a 
base  for  some  further  reading  if  it  was  made  easy,  who  could  not 
or  would  not  engage  in  any  research  requiring  much  time. 

It  would  be  ungrateful  not  to  mention  here  the  two  assistants 
who  have  lightened  my  work  and  added  to  its  value  in  its  later 
stages.  During  the  last  few  months  of  1888  Miss  T.  J.  O'Connell 
did  much  capable  and  faithful  searching  at  the  British  Museum ; 
but  my  chief  debt  is  to  Miss  Fanny  G.  Darrow  of  Boston,  who 
ransacked  libraries  in  behalf  of  the  work  for  a  year*  and  without 
whose  zeal,  patience,  and  book-lover's  "nose"  for  the  probable 
place  of  extracts,  the  measure  of  its  merits  would  have  fallen  far 
below  what  it  is. 

I  come  next  to  a  most  delicate  subject,  on  which  I  have 
risked  much  vituperation  ;  namely,  my  dealings  with  the  murdered 
grammar  and  impossible  syntax  with  which  all  Bagehot's  writings 
abound.  No  writer  of  eminence  in  modern  times  (so  far  as  I 
know)  has  treated  so  defiantly  the  primary  grammatical  rules  of 
the  English  language,  or  the  first  principles  of  construction  in  any 
language.  He  was  a  business  man,  and  he  is  an  adept  at  '  •  busi- 
ness talk "  as  frequently  heard  among  that  class  of  men,  —  per- 
fectly lucid  as  to  matter  and  perfectly  incoherent  as  to  structure, 
utterances  which  no  man  can  mistake  and  no  man  can  parse. 
There  are  sentences  in  his  works  which  are  no  more  English  than 
they  are  Chinese,  and  yet  are  not  in  the  least  indistinct  as  to 


Vl  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

meaning ;  indeed,  Mr.  Giffen  says  he  sometimes  wrote  bad  gram- 
mar purposely  to  make  his  meaning  clearer,  which  is  a  startling 
proposition.  He  must  have  known  the  difference  between  a  prin- 
cipal and  a  subordinate  clause,  but  he  put  the  knowledge  to  no 
practical  use.  His  moods  are  kept  pretty  well  in  hand  ;  but  his 
tenses  are  at  the  mercy  of  fate  and  chance,  and  some  of  his  para- 
graphs are  perfect  see-saws  of  past  and  present,  mixed  with  the 
wildest  indifference  not  only  to  grammar  but  to  sense.  His  verbs 
have  no  certainty  of  agreeing  with  his  nouns  in  number  and  per- 
son ;  his  personal  pronouns  are  as  defiant  of  the  trammels  of  sin- 
gular and  plural  relations  as  his  verbs  are  of  the  fetters  of  tense  ; 
and  his  relatives  may  or  may  not  refer  to  the  noun  they  follow. 

That  no  editor  has  any  business  to  rewrite  a  line  or  change  a 
substantive  word  of  his  author's  text  is  self-evident ;  and  that  the 
substitution  of  any  language  of  mine  for  -that  of  Walter  Bagehot 
would  be  the  summit  of  impertinence  and  presumptuous  folly  is 
equally  evident.  What  readers  wish  to  know  and  have  a  right  to 
know  is,  what  Bagehot  said,  not  what  his  editor  thinks  he  ought  to 
have  said.  Therefore,  in  no  case  have  I  meddled  with  the  struc- 
ture of  a  sentence  in  any  way ;  in  a  few  cases  I  have  called 
attention  to  the  entanglement  of  the  syntax,  but  I  have  not  even 
attempted  to  mend  such  atrocities  as  "The  period  at  which  the 
likeness  was  attempted  to  be  taken"  (beginning  of  the  "English 
Constitution"),  or  other  like  gems  of  English.  But  I  do  not  think 
even  editorial  fidelity  or  reverence  for  the  memory  of  a  great  man 
(and  I  cannot  better  gauge  my  own  for  Walter  Bagehot  than  by 
saying  that  I  believe  this  edition  is  a  higher  service  to  the  public 
than  any  original  work  I  could  do)  binds  me  to  allow  a  plural 
noun  to  remain  coupled  with  a  singular  verb  (or  vice  versa),  or  a 
singular  pronoun  in  one  clause  set  off  against  a  plural  one  in  the 
following  like  clause,  or  a  present  and  a  past  tense  similarly  yoked 
together  in  a  most  discordant  union,  —  merely  because  the  great 
man  did  not  read  his  proofs  and  a  patent  slip  of  the  pen  remained 
uncorrected.  I  do  not  believe  even  he,  little  as  he  cared  for  such 
things,  would  wish  to  have  all  the  rags  and  tatters  of  his  haste 
and  slovenliness  scrupulously  saved  up  and  exhibited  to  posterity, 
any  more  than  a  public  speaker  would  care  to  have  a  phonograph 
record  an  accidental  hiccough  ;  nor  do  I  believe  that  even  the 
most  devoted  admirers  of  Bagehot,  to  whom  every  word  is  worth 
preserving  as  instinct  with  the  flavor  of  that  rich  mind  (among 
whom  I  count  myself),  care  to  have  their  senses  jarred  upon  by 
such  purely  accidental  slips.  Nevertheless,  I  recognize  the  right  of 
the  public  to  know  just  what  their  author  wrote  and  how  he 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE.  Vll 

left  his  text ;  that  he  wrote  carelessly  and  did  not  read  his  proofs 
is  in  itself  an  item  of  interest  in  comprehending  him.  And  still 
more,  I  owe  both  to  them  and  to  myself  to  give  the  minutest 
information  just  how  far  I  have  tampered  with  the  text,  so  that 
they  may  not  fear  that  they  are  reading  a  mangled  and  wantonly 
altered  version,  and  I  may  not  be  suspected  of  meddling  with 
his  language.  I  have  therefore  kept  a  scrupulous  account  of  all 
the  changes,  even  the  minutest,  (except  such  as  are  made  by  the 
insertion  of  words  or  letters,  —  in  which  case  the  additions  are 
invariably  put  in  brackets,  —  or  by  foot-notes,)  and  give  them  in 
a  separate  table.  By  this  means,  any  one  who  finds  comfort  in 
knowing  how  badly  his  author  could  write  can  do  so,  and  where 
no  notice  is  given  may  be  sure  he  is  reading  Bagehot  undefiled. 

That  all  extracts  in  foreign  languages  are  translated,  ought  to 
be  more  a  matter  of  course  than  it  is  :  in  anything  designed  for 
wide  popular  reading,  neglect  to  do  so  is  either  laziness  or 
swagger.  The  object  being  that  all  readers  shall  have  the  fullest 
understanding  and  enjoyment  with  the  least  friction,  it  is  absurd  to 
lock  up  any  portion  out  of  the  reach  of  four-fifths  of  them  ;  and 
it  is  not  the  business  either  of  a  writer  or  an  editor  to  impose 
penalties  for  defective  education.  There  is  of  course  one  palpable 
exception  to  this,  —  where  an  extract  is  cited  as  a  sample  of  style 
instead  of  matter ;  which  in  general  excludes  translation  of  all 
poetry  as  well  as  of  some  prose.  But  curiously  enough,  not  a 
single  quotation  of  Bagehot's  from  any  foreign  author  is  given 
to  illustrate  style :  even  the  verses  from  Sophocles  in  the  essay  on 
Shelley  are  cited  only  as  an  instance  of  classic  bareness  of  deco- 
ration, and  he  quotes  poems  from  Beranger  only  to  illustrate  that 
poet's  philosophy  of  life.  The  worst  translation  possible,  therefore, 
would  be  better  than  none  ;  while  in  fact  Mr.  Walter  Learned  has 
graced  this  edition  with  several  excellent  translations  of  Beranger 
(some  of  which  I  think  much  the  finest  of  any  yet  executed),  and 
for  the  others  I  have  taken  the  best  I  could  find. 

The  foot-notes  marked  "B."  are  Bagehot's;  those  of  Mr.  Hutton 
are  marked  "  R.  H.  H.";  my  own  are  signed  "Ed."  The  latter 
is  only  added,  however,  to  controversial  or  corrective  notes ;  simple 
references  to  sources  of  quotations  are  left  uncredited,  though  all 
but  a  very  few  are  new  to  this  edition,  and  some  of  the  very 
few  in  previous  ones  are  either  wrong  or  unintelligible.  By  the 
latter  I  mean  page  references,  which  are  the  most  exasperating  of 
traps,  since  one  is  never  sure  of  having  the  same  edition  as  that 
cited,  and  the  page  number  simply  confuses  him  on  any  other.  For 
this  reason  I  have  avoided  them  rigorously,  and  made  references  to 


viii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

volume  and  chapter  almost  wholly;  the  few  page  references  given 
are  to  standard  and  always  accessible  editions  like  Bohn,  or  to 
books  where  only  one  edition  has  been  issued.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  I  have  refrained  almost  wholly  from  argumentative  notes ; 
even  the  few  which  seem  such  turn  really  upon  questions  of  fact. 
It  is  a  gross  wrong  to  an  author  to  make  his  popularity  float 
criticism  of  himself  which  could  not  gain  a  hearing  if  published 
separately,  in  such  intimate  union  with  the  text  that  it  cannot 
be  escaped  ;  and  nothing  is  more  annoying  to  a  reader  than  to  be 
incessantly  teased  with  the  information  that  the  editor,  for  whom 
lie  does  not  care,  differs  from  the  author,  for  whom  he  does  care. 
There  are  scores  of  points  on  which  I  think  Bagehot's  opinion 
could  be  contested  or  limited,  some  of  them  provoking  in  their 
perversity ;  but  I  have  not  forced  the  reader  even  to  take  the 
trouble  of  skipping  an  argument  on  the  subject. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary,  but  to  some  it  will  be,  to  disclaim 
any  overweening  notion  of  the  value  of  these  or  any  corrections. 
Of  course  Bagehot's  greatness  is  not  affected  by  such  trifles :  his 
thought  and  his  wit,  the  value  of  his  matter  and  the  charm  of  his 
style,  did  not  have  to  wait  for  this  before  delighting  the  world, 
and  so  far  as  either  the  use  or  the  pleasure  of  his  works  is 
concerned,  they  would  be  substantially  as  well  without  it.  But 
then,  the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  every  other  great  author, 
whom  neverthelesss  it  is  always  thought  a  worthy  service  to  present 
in  as  fair  and  clear  a  shape  as  possible.  Such  work  is,  to  use  a 
familiar  comparison,  only  "picking  vermin  off  a  lion's  skin";  but 
for  my  own  part  I  prefer  a  clean  lion  to  a  dirty  one,  and  must 
not  be  accused  of  forgetting  that  he  is  a  lion  because  I  perform 
the  service  thoroughly,  —  on  the  contrary,  but  for  my  hearty 
admiration  for  him  it  would  not  have  been  undertaken.  Once  for 
all,  Walter  Bagehot's  writings  have  been  to  me  for  many  years 
one  of  the  choicest  of  intellectual  luxuries,  and  a  valued  store  of 
sound  thought  and  mental  stimulation,  and  full  appreciation  of 
these  must  be  held  as  implied  in  any  difference  of  opinion  I 
express  ;  but  even  an  admired  master  and  teacher  is  not  an  idol 
to  be  uncritically  worshiped. 

Lastly,  despite  all  the  care  and  labor  expended  on  the  work,  I 
know  well  that  blunders  will  probably  be  found  in  it  by  sharp- 
eyed  specialists,  each  with  more  time  for  a  few  items  than  the 
editor  has  had  for  the  whole.  Very  likely  they  will  vindicate  Bage- 
hot's accuracy  on  some  points ;  not  impossibly  I  have  made  some 
fresh  errors  in  trying  to  correct  his.  I  cannot  escape  or  forestall 
such  criticism,  and  would  not  if  I  could,  —  the  public  is  entitled  to 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  ix 


know  the  truth  on  every  point ;  nor  shall  I  complain  of  any  just 
castigation  for  errors  or  bad  judgment.  I  ask  only  for  the  fair 
allowance  due  to  one  who  has  made  heavy  personal  sacrifices  of 
leisure,  health,  and  chosen  pursuits,  to  carry  through  an  important 
work  which  better  equipped  and  less  burdened  men  were  not  likely 
to  undertake. 

The  appreciative  essays  on  Bagehot  published  since  his  death  — 
Mr.  Button's  memoirs,  Mr.  Giffeu's  reminiscences  in  the  Fortnightly, 
the  acute  comments  of  Profs.  AValker  and  Dicey  in  the  Nation, 
and  others  —  have  so  fully  set  forth  his  titles  to  praise,  that  further 
comment  involves  an  awkward  dilemma.  To  repeat  the  eulogies 
would  be  tedious;  yet  to  give  nothing  but  hostile  criticism  would 
grossly  distort  the  perspective  both  of  Bagehot  and  myself,  and 
stultify  both  my  admiration  and  my  work.  The  hasty  reader  might 
think,  "If  Bagehot  is  wrong  in  both  his  attitude  and  his  argu- 
ments, it  is  a  waste  of  time  to  read  him,  and  he  cannot  deserve 
so  much  laudation."  Of  course  this  would  be  bad  reasoning  even 
if  the  postulate  were  wholly  true :  like  all  first-rate  minds,  Bagehot 
is  more  instructive  and  better  worth  reading  when  he  is  wrong 
than  when  he  is  right,  because  the  wrong  is  sure  to  be  almost 
right  and  the  truth  on  its  side  neglected  ;  and  for  myself,  I  take 
refuge  in  his  own  dictum  that  it  is  not  a  critic's  business  to  be 
thankful.  But  of  course  it  is  only  true  to  a  petty  degree  :  a  few 
debatable  points  do  not  exhaust  the  measure  of  his  merits. 

It  will  seem  absurd  to  compare  Bagehot  with  Coleridge,  and 
there  certainly  was  little  enough  resemblance  in  life  or  writings ; 
but  the  chief  work  of  both  was  the  same, — to  uproot  the  stubborn 
idea  that  nothing  except  what  one  is  used  to  has  any  "case." 
Bagehot  harps  upon  the  fact  that  everything  has  a  case ;  that 
institutions  and  practices  are  tools  to  do  certain  work  vital  to  a 
society,  and  cannot  be  passed  upon  till  we  know  its  needs ;  and 
that  those  needs  may  demand  alternate  acceptance  and  rejection  of 
given  institutions,  according  as  discipline  is  paralyzing  progress  or 
progress  weakening  discipline.  He  carries  this  to  the  very  root, 
evidently  taking  keen  pleasure  in  making  out  an  excellent  case  for 
isolation,  for  persecution,  for  slavery,  for  state  regulation  of  every- 
thing from  religion  to  prices,  for  even  the  most  paralyzing  politico- 
religious  despotism,  —  in  short,  for  everything  most  hateful  to  the 
modern  spirit  and  most  mischievous  in  modern  society ;  he  makes 
it  an  arguable  point  whether  his  own  arguments  for  toleration 
should  be  tolerated  ;  he  leaves  prejudice  in  favor  of  any  institution 
in  the  abstract  not  a  leg  to  stand  on.  As  a  principle  of  immediate 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


political  action,  Mr.  Hutton  is  unquestionably  right  in  thinking  this 
teaching  worse  than  useless ;  but  as  a  piece  of  analysis  to  clarify 
the  minds  of  the  intellectual  class  in  the  study  of  events  and  insti- 
tutions, to  sober  sectarian  zeal  and  infuse  caution  into  the  framers 
of  political  elysiums,  its  value  can  hardly  be  overrated. 

"Physics  and  Politics,"  of  which  the  above  is  the  vital  essence, 
seems  to  me  his  masterpiece,  and  not  even  yet  rated  at  its  true 
value.  Both  its  size  and  its  style,  though  important  merits,  are 
drawbacks  to  its  gaining  reverence ;  men  will  not  believe  that  so 
small  a  book  can  be  a  great  reservoir  of  new  truth,  or  that  one 
so  easy  to  understand  can  be  a  great  work  of  science.  Yet  after 
subtracting  all  its  heavy  debt  to  Darwin  and  Wallace,  Spencer  and 
Maine,  Tylor  and  Lubbock,  and  all  the  other  scientific  and  institu- 
tional research  of  his  day.  it  remains  one  of  the  few  epoch-making 
books  of  the  century  :  the  perspective  of  time  may  perhaps  leave 
this  and  the  "Origin  of  Species"  standing  out  as  having  given 
us  clearest  knowledge  of  the  springs  of  change  and  progress  in  the 
world,  —  this  doing  for  human  society  what  that  did  for  organic 
life.  No  other  writer  had  shown  us  that  the  early  world  was  one 
where,  so  to  say,  water  ran  up-hill  and  parallel  lines  always  met, 
where  freedom  was  ruinous  and  persecution  vital,  the  caste  system 
and  slavery  immense  advances  and  blessings,  belief  in  omens  a 
spring  of  progress,  and  hierarchies  of  ' '  medicine  men "  the  nurse- 
ries of  all  intellectual  advancement.  And  in  one  respect  Bagehot's 
work,  though  inspired  by  the  other,  is  the  more  striking,  —  it  is 
so  short.  It  is  hardly  more  than  a  pamphlet,  —  one  can  read  it 
in  an  evening :  yet  it  contains  a  mass  of  ideas  which  could  be 
instructively  expanded  into  many  volumes ;  and  I  do  not  know  of 
any  work  which  is  a  master-key  to  so  many  locks,  and  supplies  the 
formula  for  so  many  knotty  historical  problems.  Most  important 
is  the  terrible  clearness  with  which  he  brings  out  the  lack  of  any 
necessary  connection  between  the  interests  of  the  individual  and 
those  of  the  society  (that  is,  the  individuals  of  the  future),  and 
their  direct  antagonism  often  for  ages ;  this  fact  alone  is  the  source 
of  half  the  tragedy  of  the  world.  But  it  makes  the  book  a  pro- 
foundly saddening  one,  as  anything  must  be  which  recalls  the  infi- 
nite helplessness  of  human  endeavor  against  the  mighty  forces  of 
whose  orbits  we  can  hardly  see  the  curve  in  thousands  of  years ; 
one  must  have  little  imagination  not  to  be  impressed  by  it  as  by  a 
great  melancholy  epic.  It  shows  also  (though  Bagehot  evidently 
did  not  perceive  it)  that  "the  fools  being  in  the  right"  and  the 
intelligent  thought  of  a  society  wrong  half  the  time  results  from 
natural  law, — from  the  fact  that  ultimate  benefit  through  the 


EDITORS  PREFACE.  XI 

strengthening  of  the  society  involves  vast  immediate  evils,  the  pop- 
ular instinct  feeling  only  the  former  and  the  cultivated  thought 
perceiving  only  the  latter ;  and  consequently  disproves  his  own 
political  creed  that  a  democratic  government  cannot  be  as  good  as 
a  "deferential"  one.  In  fact,  that  theory  dissolves  into  a  tissue 
of  fallacies  and  verbal  quibbles  as  soon  as  one  begins  to  analyze  it. 
The  leading  theories  of  the  book  are  obviously  true.  The  two 
great  factors,  imitation  and  persecution,  though  on  the  surface 
exactly  opposed,  spring  in  fact  from  a  single  root,  the  pride  of 
personality,  the  result  of  the  very  fact  of  conscious  existence. 
Imitation  is  the  attempt  of  an  individual  to  raise  itself  to  the 
state  of  another:  supposed  inferiors  are  not  imitated.  Persecution  is 
nature's  protest  against  unstable  equilibrium,  and  effort  to  make 
it  stable  ;  that  is,  to  bar  from  an  individual's  knowledge  everything 
inconsistent  with  the  permanency  of  its  immediate  state  of  feeling, 
in  order  to  avoid  possible  discovery  that  its  principles  of  action 
are  false,  —  in  a  word,  injuries  to  its  pride.  Hence,  the  intensity 
of  the  desire  or  of  its  action  does  not  and  cannot  diminish,  —  it 
is  as  strong  now  in  the  most  civilized  societies  as  it  was  in  the 
Stone  Age.  The  only  amelioration  is,  that  to  an  ever  greater 
extent  a  flux  of  details  is  found  to  involve  none  of  guiding  princi- 
ples, and  to  be  a  sine  qua  non  of  needful  business  ;  so  more  and 
more  of  them  are  reluctantly  left  to  free  choice.  But  how  hateful 
this  tolerance  is  to  men's  hearts,  how  spontaneous  the  impulse  of 
persecution  (or,  less  harshly,  enforcing  conformity),  how  gladly  they 
set  up  some  standard  (it  does  not  much  matter  what)  in  the  pet- 
tiest things  and  force  every  one  to  act  alike,  is  manifest  wherever 
there  is  power  either  to  coerce  others  or  to  get  away  from  them. 
Parents  will  not  let  a  child  prepare  its  food  in  its  own  way,  even 
when  it  would  do  no  harm  ;  men  will  hoot  another  for  wearing 
a  suit  whose  color  is  (for  no  assignable  cause)  held  inappropriate 
to  the  season ;  and  the  tyranny  of  fashion  among  women  (who 
simply  represent  the  conservative  forces  at  their  strongest)  needs 
no  exposition.  "Society"  is  ruled  by  codes  more  microscopic, 
despotic,  and  inflexible  than  any  ever  enforced  on  savages :  the 
clothes  to  be  worn,  the  ceremonies  to  be  performed,  the  manner  of 
eating,  the  minutest  details  of  conduct,  are  prescribed  without 
latitude  or  appeal.  The  same  feeling  makes  people  shun  like  the 
plague  the  risk  of  discovering  new  truth  on  the  main  theories  of 
life,  as  politics  and  religion :  men  choose  their  associates,  their 
newspapers,  their  very  societies  of  intellectual  research,  to  reinforce 
their  confidence  in  themselves,  not  to  shake  it.  Life  would  not  be 
endurable  if  one  never  felt  sure  from  day  to  day  whether  the 
postulates  on  which  he  based  his  conduct  were  true.  Even  the 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


principle  of  corpoi-ate  liability  for  offenses  to  the  gods,  to  which 
Bagehot  assigns  the  largest  share  in  enforcing  unity  of  action, 
must  have  found  its  chief  scope  through  this  ;  for  things  directly 
esteemed  unlucky  from  special  events  (absurdly  numerous  as  they 
seem  to  us)  can  have  borne  but  a  small  proportion  to  the  mass 
of  neutral  acts,  which  must  have  been  organized  into  a  systematic 
drill  through  the  fact  that  anything  disagreeable  (or  what  is  the 
same  thing,  unfamiliar)  to  themselves  was  of  course  assumed  dis- 
agreeable to  their  gods  too,  and  soon  came  under  a  permanent 
religious  ban.  I  am  inclined  also  to  think  that  his  theory  of  the 
way  the  "cake  of  custom"  came  to  be  broken  is  more  ingenious 
than  valid  :  the  progress  of  the  world  cannot  have  been  left  to 
the  pure  accident  of  a  special  polity.  It  is  much  more  likely  that 
it  resulted  from  the  simultaneous  growth  of  knowledge,  cupidity, 
and  business  necessity,  —  through  the  mixture  of  peoples,  conquest, 
and  commerce,  —  and  would  have  occurred  if  the  "chief,  old  men, 
and  multitude"  system  had  never  grown  up.  Here  as  elsewhere 
the  influence  of  old  prepossessions  is  very  visible  :  aristocracy  hav- 
ing in  fact  existed  in  all  progressive  societies,  it  is  assumed  that 
but  for  its  rise  the  world  could  never  have  emerged  from  savagery 
—  which  is  incredible. 

The  economic  wTorth  or  novelty  of  '  '  Economic  Studies  "  I  am  not 
competent  to  estimate  ;  but  that  feature  is  not  to  me  its  chief 
interest,  and  I  doubt  if  it  is  its  chief  value,  which  is  rather  his- 
toric and  social.  The  book  is  mainly  a  re-survey  of  the  ground 
traversed  in  "Physics  and  Politics,"  with  which  it  is  identical  in 
aim  in  a  more  limited  sphere,  —  to  prove  that  modern  advantages 
were  ancient  ruin,  and  modern  axioms  ancient  untruths.  It  but- 
tresses the  same  points  with  many  new  illustrations  and  exposi- 
tions ;  and  contains  besides  a  mass  of  the  nicest  and  shrewdest 
observations  on  modern  trade  and  society,  full  of  truth  and  sug- 
gestiveness.  That  it  was  left  a  fragment  is  a  very  great  loss  to 
the  world  ;  had  it  been  finished,  Mr.  Giffen's  account  of  his  dis- 
cussions with  his  colleague  gives  us  reason  to  believe  that  it  would 
have  touched  on  all  the  moral  elements  in  trade  which  so  deflect 
men  from  the  line  of  mere  pecuniary  interest. 

Regarding  the  "English  Constitution,"  appreciation  of  its  im- 
mense merits  must  be  taken  for*  granted  ;  praising  it  is  as  super- 
fluous as  praising  Shakespeare.  Every  student  knows  that  it  has 
revolutionized  the  fashion  of  writing  on  its  subject,  that  its  classi- 
fications of  governments  are  accepted  commonplaces,  that  it  is  the 
leading  authority  in  its  own  field  and  a  valued  store  of  general 
political  thought.  As  an  analysis  of  the  English  system  and  an 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE.  Xlll 


essay  on  comparative  constitutions,  it  will  not  lose  its  value ;  as 
a  treatise  on  the  best  form  of  constitution  and  a  manual  of  advice 
for  foreigners,  it  is  a  monument  of  the  futility  of  such  work,  for 
the  course  of  events  since  his  death  seems  sardonically  designed 
for  the  express  purpose  of  making  a  wreck  of  it.  The  last  dec- 
ade has  done  more  than  the  previous  four  to  compel  a  total 
recasting  of  much  political  speculation  based  at  once  on  long  ex- 
perience and  seemingly  unassailable  theory.  In  this  country  some 
apparent  axioms,  further  confirmed  by  the  test  of  ninety  years, 
have  been  upset  by  that  of  a  hundred ;  in  France,  recent  history 
has  justified  Bagehot's  theory  as  a  philosopher  by  stultifying  his 
conclusions  as  an  Englishman,  and  proving  his  governmental  pre- 
scription to  be  quackery  as  a  panacea ;  in  his  own  country  some 
of  the  leaders  of  thought  are  looking  wistfully  toward  the  con- 
servatism of  our  system  as  an  improvement  on  the  unfettered 
democracy  of  theirs, —  an  ironical  commentary  on  his  book.  These 
changes,  too,  are  of  the  most  opposite  sorts,  as  might  be  expected, 
—  the  characteristic  evils  of  each  system  developing  until  they 
become  well-nigh  intolerable  and  demand  an  infusion  of  the  other 
for  a  remedy.  In  this  country  we  need  some  elements  at  least 
of  the  cabinet  system,  for  the  sake  of  political  education,  party 
responsibility,  direct  executive  power,  and  the  ability  to  prevent 
the  creation  of  a  permanent  oligarchy  through  the  interests  and 
fears  of  an  army  of  office-holders.  In  France  there  is  evident 
need  of  an  executive  with  power  to  carry  on  the  government  for  a 
certain  time  in  defiance  of  faction.  In  England  the  question  is  so 
bound  up  with  the  tremendous  problems  now  at  hand,  and  these 
are  so  involved  and  far-reaching,  that  reserve  of  judgment  is  both 
modesty  and  common-sense ;  but  the  difference  in  the  situation 
from  that  of  a  few  years  ago  is  so  great  that  the  rather  complacent 
tone  of  the  book  already  grates  on  one  as  being  decidedly  out  of 
place,  and  even  gives  it  an  unjust  appearance  of  shallowness.  Part 
of  the  change  had  come  before  his  death  :  the  difference  in  tone 
between  the  first  edition  and  the  introduction  to  the  second  is 
nearly  as  great  as  between  the  views  of  trade  given  by  a  merchant 
when  prospering  and  when  menaced  with  bankruptcy. 

And  this  leads  naturally  to  his  utterances  on  American  sub- 
jects. These  were  in  general  so  fair,  often  so  weighty  and  valu- 
able, and  always  so  different  in  kind  from  the  ignorant  ill-will 
toward  anything  foreign  in  which  every  national  press  is  steeped, 
that  we  can  feel  no  irritation  even  where  his  judgment  is  most 
severe.  Besides,  he  confined  his  criticisms  mainly  to  positive  insti- 
tutions, which  can  be  modified  at  will;  and  did  little  carping  at 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 


social  facts,  which  is  scarcely  more  than  a  waste  of  breath  even 
from  a  native  and  quite  that  from  a  foreigner,  —  such  facts  not 
being  conscious  creations  but  instinctive  embodiments  of  social 
necessities,  which  adjust  themselves  as  needed  and  which  their 
very  creators  are  powerless  to  change.  It  would  be  silly,  therefore, 
to  resent  the  little  streaks  of  complacent  John-Bullism  which 
lurked  even  in  that  least  insular  of  minds  ;  but  I  confess  to  a 
touch  of  malicious  satisfaction  in  this  proof  that  he  was  human 
and  an  Englishman.  Of  this  sort  is  the  remark,  in  the  most 
permanently  delicious  passage  he  ever  wrote  (that  on  early  read- 
ing in  the  essay  on  Gibbon),  "Catch  an  American  of  thirty; 
tell  him  about  the  battle  of  Marathon,"  etc.  What  he  supposed 
the  historical  teaching  in  American  colleges*  to  consist  of,  it  is 
impossible  to  say;  apparently,  analyses  of  the  battle  of  New 
Orleans,  and  panegyrics  on  Sam  Houston  and  Davy  Crockett. 
But  all  literature  may  be  challenged  to  furnish  anything  equal 
in  absurdity  to  the  grave  deliverance  in  "Physics  and  Politics," 
that  "A  Shelley  in  New  England  could  hardly  have  lived,  and  a 
race  of  Shelley  s  would  have  been  impossible.'1'1  Shelley  would  have 
been  no  whit  more  out  of  key  with  the  community  than  were 
Alcott  and  Thoreau,  and  he  could  not  well  have  received  less  sym- 
pathy here  than  he  did  at  home  ;  and  in  what  quarter  or  epoch 
of  the  world  since  the  Silurian  age  "a  race  of  Shelleys"  would 
have  been  possible,  defies  imagination,  —  it  certainly  was  not  Eng- 
land in  1800+.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that  Bagehot  did  not  have 
some  intelligible  thought  in  writing  this  piece  of  pinchbeck  pro- 
fundity, but  I  cannot  form  the  least  idea  what. 

These  of  course  are  trifles;  but  in  both  the  great  aspects  of 
our  system,  the  political  and  the  social,  he  omits  or  mistakes 
essential  facts.  To  be  sure,  in  the  social  aspect  he  bases  a 
gloomy  view  of  the  future  on  a  much  too  complimentary  view  of 
the  present  ;  but  *it  must  have  struck  so  impartial  a  seeker  after 
truth  as  a  very  remarkable  and  gratifying  coincidence,  that  both 
the  political  and  the  social  system  of  his  own  country  should  be 
the  best  in  the  world,  not  only  for  present  happiness  but  for 
future  elevation. 

First,  politically.  The  "English  Constitution"  is  ostensibly  not 
a  brief  for  that  system,  but  a  judicial  work  on  comparative  consti- 
tutions ;  and  from  such  a  standpoint  it  is  a  serious  flaw  that  he 


*0f  course  comparisons  of  this  sort  must  be  made  between  like  classes: 
It  Is  absurd  to  contrast  the  educated  few  of  one  country  with  the  rough 
mass  of  another,  and  I  doubt  if  the  bulk  of  Yorkshire  farmers  or  Lancashire 
mill-Lands  would  find  any  magic  in  the  name  of  Miltiades  or  Leonidas. 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  xv 


ignores  wholly  the  factor  of  stability,  to  which  everywhere  else  he 
attaches  supreme  value.  All  progress  and  even  good  government 
must  be  sacrificed  if  necessary  to  keep  the  political  fabric  together, 
is  the  entire  raison  d'etre  of  the  "Letters  on  the  Coup  d'Etat"; 
if  a  government  cannot  keep  itself  alive,  it  makes  no  difference 
how  good  it  is.  Much  of  "Physics  and  Politics"  and  "Economic 
Studies "  rests  on  the  same  thesis :  unity  of  action  is  of  such 
prime  importance  to  the  world  that  a  disciplined  band  of  semi- 
barbarians  often  crushes  out  an  advanced  but  loose-knit  society ; 
the  same  idea  recurs  again  and  again  in  his  other  writings.  Yet 
when  he  contrasts  the  English  with  the  American  system,  national 
feeling  triumphs  over  abstract  philosophy,  with  the  result  of  exactly 
reversing  the  relations  of  the  two  systems.  The  evident  fact  is, 
that  the  nominal  aristocracy  of  England  is  really  an  unchecked 
democracy,  committing  the  fate  of  the  polity  at  every  moment, 
through  the  cabinet  system  and  the  lack  of  a  written  constitution, 
to  the  crude  emotions  of  the  mass ;  while  the  nominal  democracy 
of  America  is  so  curbed  by  its  written  Constitution  and  fixed 
executive  terms,  accessory  institutions,  and  the  division  of  power 
between  national,  State,  and  municipal  bodies,  that  its  working  is 
even  ultra-conservative.  Nor  is  it  true,  as  he  was  wont  to  argue 
in  the  Economist,  that  such  barriers  are  only  useless  irritations, 
and  are  always  broken  through  as  soon  as  the  people  are  really 
excited.  The  failure  of  Johnson's  impeachment  is  one  proof  to 
the  contrary  ;  and  though  the  Supreme  Court  could  be  swamped 
and  packed,  that  process  cannot  be  indefinitely  repeated.  On  the 
whole,  the  curbs  curb,  —  and  a  good  deal  too  much ;  for  I  must 
not  be  understood  as  objecting  much  to  what  he  says,  but  only 
to  what  he  does  not  say.  His  positive  criticisms  are  mainly  of 
the  highest  value  and  justice,  and  the  severest  ones  are  the  truest. 
The  dangers  and  degradations  and  follies,  the  scanting  of  decent 
political  thought  and  the  outlawry  of  independent  political  think- 
ers, the  riot  of  low  minds  and  coarse  natures  in  authority  for 
which  they  have  no  fitness,  the  lowering  into  the  mud  of  the 
standards  of  political  cleanliness,  inevitable  to  such  a  polity,  are  so 
far  from  being  overstated  that  his  expressions  are  tame  beside  the 
facts.  My  contention  is,  that  every  point  he  makes  in  favor  of  the 
English  system  — and  his  arguments  are  of  immense  weight  and 
often  unanswerable  —  is  an  equal  point  in  favor  of  pure  democracy 
and  against  his  own  distrust  of  the  people,  by  showing  that  the 
freer  they  are  left  to  their  own  will  the  better  they  manage. 
Nothing  can  be  truer  than  that  a  cabinet  system  keeps  the  politi- 
cal education  of  the  masses  at  the  highest  pitch,  and  that  one  like 


XVI        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

ours  injuriously  stints  it.  But  thoroughness  of  political  education 
results  from  directness  of  political  power ;  and  while  a  champion 
of  democracy  is  perfectly  consistent  in  thinking  this  an  advantage 
and  favoring  cabinet  government,  its  advocacy  by  Bagehot  on 
that  express  ground  presents  the  grotesque  spectacle  of  a  great 
thinker  employing  his  best  powers  in  confuting  his  own  creed. 
And  it  is  certainly  not  proved  that  the  hard  and  fast  line  he 
draws  between  the  two  systems  is  inevitable :  that  free  countries 
are  shut  down  forever  to  a  choice  between  two  evils,  neither  of 
which  can  be  lessened ;  that  they  must  take  either  a  pure  cabi- 
net system,  with  the  throttle  valve  always  under  the  hand  of  the 
mob,  or  a  pure  presidential  system,  with  irresistible  party  power 
yet  no  party  responsibility,  little  direct  power  of  the  executive  for 
good  and  limitless  indirect  power  for  mischief,  and  the  bread  of 
many  thousands  of  families  at  once  a  bribe  and  a  threat  to  turn 
elections  into  a  farce.  I  believe  that  the  two  can  be  made  in 
some  measure  to  work  together ;  and  if  either  finally  absorbed  the 
other,  it  would  be  the  surest  possible  proof  that  the  survivor  was 
best  fitted  to  the  needs  of  the  country. 

His  theory  of  the  social  effects  of  democracy  is  wildly  im- 
aginary, and  very  diverting  to  an  American.  He  actually  assumes 
that  the  theory  of  democratic  social  equality  is  realized  as  a  fact, 
and  that  bootblacks  and  porters  are  the  social  equals  (or  at  least 
think  themselves  so  and  act  as  if  they  were)  of  the  rich  and  the 
"old  families";  and  bases  on  this  assumption  a  highly  complacent 
thesis  of  the  great  superiority pf  English  society,  as  one  of  "remov- 
able inequalities,"  which  is  one  of  the  most  elaborately  absurd 
pieces  of  social  speculation  ever  published.  In  the  first  place,  his 
facts  are  all  wrong.  Social  equality  is  a  chimera  anyway,  and  in 
few  sections  of  the  earth  is  there  less  either  of  the  practice  or  the 
theory  than  in  the  older  cities  of  the  United  States.  As  to  the 
practice,  nowhere  do  a  larger  part  of  the  people  devote  more  of 
their  faculties,  from  youth  to  old  age,  with  strenuous  energy  and 
anxious  care,  to  the  sole  task  of  preventing  other  people  from  asso- 
ciating with  them,  —  their  successes  and  failures  in  this  useful 
vocation  make  no  small  part  of  the  fun  of  the  numerous  comic 
papers ;  society  is  stratified  by  money,  family  connections,  and 
occupation,  here  as  everywhere,  and  England  itself  cannot  surpass 
the  minuteness  of  gradations  and  the  subtlety  of  distinctions.  As 
to  the  theory,  not  only  is  it  practically  absent  from  current  talk 
or  thought  (except  as  an  occasional  inspiration  to  quell  an  English 
tourist),  but  I  do  not  believe  any  other  literature  has  so  large  a 
body  of  writing  of  all  forms  —  essays,  novels,  plays,  etc. — devoted 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  xvii 

to  a  conscious  propaganda  of  the  snob  theory  of  life  in  all  its 
details,  as  America  can  show  in  the  last  two  decades,  —  employing 
every  weapon  from  direct  argument  to  spiteful  sneers  and  calm 
assumption,  and  in  every  tone  from  light  ridicule  to  rancorous 
bitterness.  The  reaction  from  the  earlier  democratic  theories  has 
been  even  violent:  in  the  perception  that  the  equality  so  coveted 
and  eulogized  is  neither  possible  nor  best,  a  host  of  writers  revel 
in  kicking  and  insulting  it,  arid  glorifying  the  opposite  and  worse 
extreme  which  does  not  recognize  personal  qualities  as  a  factor  in 
social  estimates  at  all.  After  reading  some  novels  of  the  past  few 
years,  one  thinks  of  the  Jacobin  Clubs  of  1794  with  a  kindlier 
feeling.  These  writers  are  by  no  means  consistent  in  detail,— 
part  of  them  urging  that  the  common  herd  may  perhaps  make 
something  of  their  successors  by  tearful  self-abasement  of  them- 
selves, while  others  denounce  them  for  wishing  to  be  better  than 
God  made  them,  and  for  not  making  servant-girls  of  their  daugh- 
ters ;  and  the  same  author  sometimes  implying  in  one  work  that 
wealth  without  grandfathers  is  naught,  and  in  another  that  the 
Admirable  Crichton  himself  without  a  large  fortune  would  not  be 
a  proper  parti :  but  they  have  one  common  aim,  —  to  teach  that 
the  first  duty  of  all  who  would  be  socially  saved  is  to  despise  and 
avoid  as  large  a  part  of  the  human  race  as  possible.  A  society  like 
this  is  in  no  lack  of  inequalities  of  any  sort  to  furnish  a  stimulus 
to  struggle,  an  incentive  to  every  sort  of  ambition  from  the  basest 
to  the  noblest,  a  motive  to  acquire  everything  tangible  and  intan- 
gible to  be  got  by  man.  And  on  the  other  hand,  the  inequalities 
of  the  vast  mass  of  English  society  are  of  exactly  the  same  sort, 
and  are  "removable"  only  by  just  the  same  means,  —  namely,  visi- 
ble expenditure,  dust-licking,  patience,  and  careful  imitation  of  the 
accepted  social  leaders.  The  very  essence  of  Du  Maurier's  endless 
satire  is,  that  the  untitled  English  dx>  not  have  their  classes  labeled, 
and  that  the  scramble  to  acquire  a  better  standing,  and  the  pre- 
mium on  pretending  to  a  better  standing  than  one  has,  give  rein 
to  some  of  the  meanest  passions  of  human  nature ;  brains  and 
character  count  for  as  much  or  as  little  in  one  society  as  in  the 
other ;  there  is  nothing*  more  essentially  ennobling  in  trying  to  get 
rich  enough  to  be  made  a  baronet  or  a  lord,  than  in  trying  to  get 
rich  enough  to  be  invited  to  the  Jones's  receptions  or  to  refuse  to 
invite  them  to  your  own ;  and  aping  the  manners  of  lords  is  no 
more  refining  than  aping  those  of  the  "first  families"  of  Boston, 
New  York,  or  Virginia.  Bagehot's  contention,  in  fact,  reduces  to 
two  points :  that  there  being  several  labeled  ranks  of  society  makes 
the  boundaries  of  classes  among  the  unlabeled  one  less  doubtful ; 
VOL.  I.— B 


Xviii  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  that  the  effort  to  get  out  of  the  latter  into  the  former  is 
more  improving  than  the  effort  to  climb  from  one  of  the  latter 
to  another,  —  both  which  need  only  statement  for  disproof.  Plainly 
enough,  he  built  an  ingenious  theory  on  the  names  aristocracy 
and  democracy,  without  comparing  either  with  facts. 

The  biographical  papers  vary  much  in  merit ;  but  the  best  of 
them  are  of  the  very  first  rank,  among  not  only  his  writings  but 
all  writings  of  the  kind.  Like  the  literary  essays,  they  are  at  once 
helped  and  harmed  by  his  passion  for  making  the  facts  support  a 
theory ;  but  the  benefit  is  much  greater  than  the  injury.  They 
have  two  special  merits  in  great  strength :  they  are  wonderfully 
vivid  in  portrayal  of  character,  —  the  subjects  stand  out  like  sil- 
houettes, and  one  knows  them  almost  like  the  hero  of  a  novel ; 
and  they  present  the  important  political  features  of  the  times  with 
stereoscopic  and  unforgetable  clearness.  In  these  respects  he  far 
surpassed  the  most  famous  master  in  this  line,  Lord  Macaulay. 
One  cannot  form  nearly  so  full  and  just  an  idea  of  the  younger 
Pitt's  equipment,  or  so  clear  an  image  of  his  personality,  from 
Macaulay's  biography  as  from  Bagehot's ;  and  the  insight  into  the 
problems  of  Queen  Anne's  time  to  be  gained  from  the  "War  of 
the  Succession "  is  very  superficial  compared  with  that  given  by 
the  masterly  exposition  in  Bagehot's  Bolingbroke.  Bagehot,  too, 
has  an  unequaled  skill  in  so  stating  his  facts  and  his  deductions 
as  to  force  one  to  remember  them,  —  the  highest  triumph  of  a 
literary  style.  A  careless  person  may  read  an  essay  of  Macaulay's 
with  great  delight,  carry  away  a  wealth  of  glittering  sentences, 
and  be  absolutely  unable  to  remember  the  course  or  connection 
of  events,  —  the  uniform  brilliancy  destroying  the  perspective  and 
leaving  nothing  salient  for  the  mind  to  grasp ;  but  nobody  who 
reads  one  of  Bagehot's  historical  papers  can  lose  the  clue  to  the 
politics  of  the  time  any  more  than  he  can  forget  his  name. 

The  sketch  of  his  father-in-law,  Mr.  Wilson,  it  would  be  unfair 
to  judge  by  pure  abstract  standards.  Its  chief  interest  to  me  is 
its  unconscious  picture  of  the  complacent  provinciality,  the  applica- 
tion of  their  local  standards  to  everything  in  the  world,  which  has 
made  the  English  government  and  many  of  the  most  high-minded 
and  well-meaning  English  officials  hated  by  every  subject  people  in 
every  age.  Mr.  Wilson  was  an  able,  upright,  and  utterly  consci- 
entious public  man  ;  he  never  had  a  doubt  that  the  administrative 
machinery  of  England  was  the  best  possible  for  any  country  or 
people,  that  the  taxes  ought  to  be  raised  everywhere  just  as  they 
were  raised  in  England,  that  the  way  anything  was  done  in  Eng- 
land was  the  way  it  should  be  done  everywhere ;  he  was  made 


EDITOR  S   PREFACE.  XIX 

financial  dictator  of  India,  and  proceeded  to  duplicate  the  English 
system  there,  in  unruffled  disregard  both  of  the  people  and  of  the 
resident  English  officials  who  declared  it  unsuitable  to  the  coun- 
try :  and  his  biographer,  who  has  devoted  his  best  powers  else- 
where to  exposing  the  folly  of  abstract  systems,  calmly  tells  us 
that  if  it  did  not  work  well  it  was  the  people's  own  fault,  and 
they  must  not  complain  if  the  government  put  on  the  screws 
harder.  Both  may  have  been  entirely  right  —  but  it  is  all  very 
English,  and  an  excellent  object  lesson. 

The  literary  essays  are  unfailingly  charming,  and  exhibit  Bage- 
hot's  wit  and  freshness  of  view  and  keenness  of  insight,  and  the 
wide  scope  of  his  thought,  more  thoroughly  than  any  other  of  his 
writings  ;  and  their  criticism  is  often  of  the  highest  value.  Yet  I 
do  not  rate  them  his  best.  They  have  the  merit  and  the  defect  of 
a  consistent  purpose,  —  a  central  theory  which  the  details  are  mar- 
shaled to  support.  The  merit  is,  that  it  makes  them  worth  writing 
at  all ;  the  defect,  that  the  theory  may  be  wrong  or  incomplete, 
and  the  facts  garbled  to  make  out  a  case  for  it.  For  example, 
Macaulay's  character  and  views  are  both  distorted  to  round  out 
Bagehot's  theory  of  the  literary  temperament  and  its  effects.  The 
theory  is  only  half  true  to  begin  with  :  the  shrinking  from  life 
and  preference  for  books  which  he  attributes  to  an  unsensitive 
disposition  is  often  enough  the  result  of  the  exact  reverse,  —  an 
over-sensitive  one,  like  a  flayed  man,  which  makes  it  hard  to  dis- 
tinguish impressions  because  all  hurt  alike  ;  Southey,  the  extreme 
type  of  the  book  man,  exemplifies  this.  Macaulay  could  not  have 
been  the  able  administrator  and  effective  parliamentary  speaker  he 
was,  without  much  more  capacity  to  see  life  and  men  with  his  own 
eyes  than  Bagehot  allows  him  ;  and  how  any  one  can  read  the 
"Notes  on  the  Indian  Penal  Code"  and  still  maintain  that  Mac- 
aulay's residence  in  India  taught  him  nothing,  I  cannot  compre- 
hend. And  his  judgment  of  the  Puritans  is  grossly  perverted :  he, 
and  not  Carlyle,  was  the  first  to  sweep  away  the  current  view  that 
they  were  canting  hypocrites  whose  religion  makes  their  success- 
harder  instead  of  easier  to  understand  ;  and  both  in  the  essays 
and  in  the  "History  of  England"  he  attributes  their  power  directly 
to  their  religious  fervor,  —  his  lack  of  sympathy  with  which  makes 
his  hearty  appreciation  of  its  effects  all  the  more  striking  a  proof 
of  his  intellectual  acuteness.  Bagehot  more  than  atones  for  this, 
however,  by  a  signal  service  to  Macaulay's  repute  in  pointing  out 
that  the  vulgar  cant  which  rates  him  as  a  mere  windy  rhetorician 
is  the  exact  reverse  of  the  truth,  and  that  the  source  of  his  merits 
and  defects  alike  was  a  hard  unspiritual  common-sense. 


XX        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

The  miscellaneous  nature  of  the  essays  was  a  great  advantage 
to  a  shrewd  and  humorous  mind  like  his,  by  not  exacting  a  petty 
surface  consistency  :  he  could  utter  all  sorts  of  contradictory  or 
complementary  half-truths,  shoot  the  shafts  of  his  wit  at  friend 
and  foe  alike,  and  gibe  at  all  classes  of  society  as  their  ridiculous 
aspects  came  into  view.  Any  one  dull  enough  to  take  all  his  fleers 
for  cold  and  final  judgments,  and  try  to  weave  them  into  a  con- 
sistent whole,  would  have  a  worse  task  than  Michael  Scott's  devil. 
He  seems  to  me  to  have  had  also,  as  such  a  mind  often  has,  a 
strong  element  of  sheer  perversity.  One  of  his  chief  delights  —  by 
a  reactionary  sympathy  rather  odd  in  a  great  thinker  and  literary 
man,  and  specially  so  in  him  as  contrary  to  his  whole  theory  of 
modern  society — was  to  magnify  the  active  and  belittle  the  intel- 
lectual temperament ;  he  is  never  tired  of  glorifying  fox-hunters 
and  youths  who  hate  study,  and  sneering  at  the  intellectual  class, 
from  Euclid  and  Newton,  Macaulay  and  Mackintosh,  to  college  tutors 
and  impotent  litterateurs.  Yet  in  "Physics  and  Politics,"  where 
his  serious  purpose  curbs  his  reckless  wit,  he  credits  the  "pale  pre- 
liminary students  "  with  the  main  share  in  developing  civilization ; 
and  in  a  remarkable  passage  makes  the  active  temperament  a  seri- 
ous drawback  and  evil  temptation  in  modern  life,  and  the  increase 
_of  thoughtful  quiet  our  great  desideratum.  The  natural  deduction 
would  be,  that  the  best  work  has  been  done  by  the  best  men, 
and  that  a  class  we  need  to  have  multiplied  is  a  superior  class. 
Surely  it  is  an  exception  to  everything  else  in  the  universe  if  the 
small  body  of  pioneers  have  been  the  weakest  part  of  the  race,  if 
the  scarcest  mental  qualities  are  the  least  valuable,  if  the  world's 
admiration  is  given  to  those  who  as  a  whole  do  not  deserve  it, 
if  the  fortunes  of  the  world  have  depended  and  still  depend  on 
the  fiberless  and  the  purblind.  Like  others,  Bagehot  sometimes 
preferred  one-sided  wit  to  judicial  truth.  After  this,  it  will  seem 
like  wanton  paradox  to  say  that  I  think  his  utterances  on 
this  point  much  more  valuable  and  better  worth  heeding  than 
most  of  those  on  the  other  side ;  but  it  is  not.  We  hear  quite 
enough  of  the  other,  and  feeble  recluse  literary  talent  gets  fully 
as  much  reverence  as  it  earns ;  it  is  very  wholesome  to  have  it 
shrunk  a  little  by  a  cold  shower-bath  of  mockery,  and  a  practical 
experience  of  life  set  up  as  the  inexorable  condition  of  having 
anything  to  say  worth  listening  to.  It  is  exaggerated,  of  course, 
but  one  must  exaggerate  to  gain  a  hearing,  —  refined  truth  is  not 
exciting ;  and  there  is  no  truer  or  weightier  remark  than  Bage- 
hot's,  that  literature  is  so  comparatively  sterile  because  ' '  so  few 
people  that  can  write  know  anything." 


EDITOR  S  PREFACE.  XXI 


His  own  "Lombard  Street"  is  a  splendid  material  argument  of 
the  above  position :  as  he  says,  most  business  men  cannot  write, 
most  writers  know  nothing  of  business,  therefore  most  writing 
about  business  is  either  unreadable  or  untrue ;  he  devoted  the  high- 
est literary  talent  to  the  theme  of  his  daily  business,  and  has 
produced  a  book  as  solid  as  a  market  report  and  more  charming 
than  a  novel.  It  is  one  of  the  marvels  of  literature.  There  has 
rarely  been  such  an  example  of  the  triumph  of  style  over  matter,  — 
Macaulay  himself  never  succeeded  in  giving  more  exhaustless  charm 
to  things  which  few  can  make  readable  at  all ;  and  it  is  a  striking 
example  of  his  great  faculty  of  illuminating  every  question  by  illus- 
trations from  the  unlikeliest  sources.  There  is  a  fascination  about 
it  surpassing  that  of  any  other  of  his  writings :  its  luminous,  easy, 
half- playful  "business  talk"  is  irresistibly  captivating,  and  after 
reading  it  a  hundred  times,  I  cannot  pick  it  up  without  reading  a 
good  share  of  it  again.  As  to  the  validity  of  its  criticisms  or 
advice  on  banking  matters,  I  know  nothing  and  shall  say  nothing. 
The  only  strong  review  of  the  book  was  by  Professor  Bonamy  Price 
in  Fraser's ;  and  while  some  of  the  professor's  observations  are 
highly  acute  and  valuable,  one  grudges  to  admit  any  merit  at  all 
in  the  article  on  account  of  its  virulent  bitterness  of  tone,  the 
extreme  opposite  to  that  of  the  book  reviewed.  The  business  man 
discusses  his  subject  like  a  gentleman,  and  the  professor  like  a 
termagant,  —  nothing  new  in  controversies ;  and  the  latter  becomes 
ponderously  sarcastic  with  rage  every  time  he  thinks  of  the 
"insult"  offered  to  the  management  of  the  Bank  of  England  by 
the  suggestions  for  bettering  it, — something  the  author  probably 
never  dreamed  of  and  the  public  certainly  never  noticed.  Even 
a  much  smaller  man  is  entitled  to  say.  without  committing  the 
stupendous  folly  of  expressing  an  opinion  on  the  Bank  case,  that 
Professor  Price's  assault  on  Bagehot  for  confusion  of  technical  terms 
is  over-captious  (the  passage  on  this  subject  in  the  "  Transfera- 
bility  of  Capital "  is  evidently  intended  as  an  answer  to  it) ;  that 
some  of  his  assertions  are  simply  angry  reiterations,  without  fresh 
argument,  of  points  Bagehot  has  contested ;  that  others  attack 
things  in  one  part  of  the  book  which  are  cleared  up  in  another 
part ;  and  that  nothing  in  it  warrants  any  such  amount  of  bad 
temper.  Moreover,  his  position  on  the  subject  of  panics,  considered 
as  a  reply  to  Bagehot,  makes  one  open  his  eyes  very  wide :  it 
is  the  same  thing  in  essence  as  telling  the  corpse  of  a  man  dead 
from  fright  that  since  all  his  organs  are  sound,  he  has  no  business 
to  be.  dead,  and  in  point  of  fact  is  not  dead,  and  could  perfectly 
well  go  on  living  if  he  chose.  The  obvious  answer  is,  that  none 


xxii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  less  he  is  dead.  If  a  panic  results  in  reducing  a  host  of 
merchants  to  bankruptcy  and  small  salaries,  in  reducing  thousands 
of  families  from  affluence  to  poverty,  in  destroying  elegant  homes 
and  sending  their  inmates  to  tenements,  in  depriving  boys  of 
university  educations  and  girls  of  social  chances,  it  is  a  tremen- 
dous misfortune,  even  though,  as  Professor  Price  maintains,  not 
a  particle  of  actual  capital  is  lost;  it  is  to  be  averted  by  every 
possible  means ;  and  it  is  not  presumptuous  to  say  that  Bagehot's 
preventives  are  much  sounder  than  Professor  Price's,  which  seem 
to  consist  of  telling  people  that  if  they  would  have  sense  enough 
not  to  be  scared  they  would  not  be  harmed.  This  is  of  course 
true,  but  also  worthless;  it  is  excellent  as  general  teaching,  but 
childish  in  any  particular  crisis :  and  if  business  is  based  on  a 
probability  of  facts  instead  of  directly  on  the  facts,  it  is  inevi- 
table that  an  apparent  failure  of  the  probability  should  produce  for 
the  time  the  same  result  as  an  actual  failure  of  the  facts.  But 
all  this  is  beside  the  vital  qualities  of  "Lombard  Street":  its 
merits  or  defects  as  a  banker's  manual  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  its  immortality,  for  sooner  or  later  its  use  in  that  capacity 
must  pass  away.  It  will  live  as  a  picture,  not  as  a  text-book; 
ages  after  the  London  of  our  time  is  as  extinct  as  the  Athens  of 
Pericles,  it  will  be  read  with  delight  as  incomparably  the  best 
description  of  that  London's  business  essence  that  anywhere  exists. 

Of  the  "Articles  on  the  Depreciation  of  Silver,"  it  must  be  said 
that  the  course  of  events  has  not  thus  far  supported  their  thesis. 
It  seems  most  probable  that  the  increased  use  of  tools  of  credit  — 
which  is  the  same  thing  as  the  growth  of  mutual  confidence,  bred 
by  civilization  and  commerce  —  has  permanently  lessened  the  need- 
ful stock  of  coin,  and  that  consequently  the  use  and  value  of  the 
bulkier  metal  have  started  on  a  downward  road  which  can  never 
ascend.  If  the  great  silver-using  countries  develop  increased  trade, 
they  will  probably  use  less  silver  instead  of  more,  simply  drawing 
more  bills.  But  aside  from  their  main  purpose,  the  articles  con- 
tain much  admirable  exposition  of  trade  facts  and  principles,  richly 
worth  studying. 

Of  the  "Letters  on  the  French  Coup  d'fitat,"  there  is  not  much 
to  add  to  what  Mr.  Hutton  and  others  have  said.  They  are  per- 
ennially entertaining  and  wholesome  reading,  full  of  racy  wit  and 
capital  argument ;  they  contain  the  essence  of  all  his  political 
philosophy,  and  he  swerved  very  little  from  their  main  lines ;  and 
with  all  their  limitations  and  perversities,  they  would  be  an  inval- 
uable manual  for  our  politicians  and  legislators,  —  their  faults  are 
too  opposed  to  our  rooted  instincts  to  do  the  smallest  harm,  and 


EDITOR'S  PREFACE.  xxiii 


they  harp  on  those  primary  objects  of  all  government  which 
demagogues  and  buncombe  representatives  forget  or  never  knew. 
They  are  still  more  remarkable  as  the  only  writings  of  so  young 
a  man  on  such  a  subject  whose  matter  is  of  any  permanent  value, 
and  as  showing  how  early  his  capacity  for  reducing  the  confused 
details  of  life  to  an  embracing  principle  gained  its  full  stature. 

As  theological  opinions  rarely  please  any  one  but  the  holder, 
I  may  perhaps  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  pleasing  myself  in  com- 
menting on  Bagehot's,  without  expecting  concurrence  from  others. 
He  was  much  too  cool,  skeptical,  practical,  and  humorous  for  a 
great  theologian  or  religious  leader ;  but  his  acute  and  original 
intellect  suffered  no  paralysis  in  this  field,  and  he  had  one  factor 
of  the  highest  religious  temperament, —  a  strong  bent  toward  and 
liking  for  mysticism.  Indeed,  in  the  "First  Edinburgh  Reviewers" 
he  asserts  flatly  that  "mysticism  is  true,"  —  which  is  a  matter  of 
definition.  This  raised  him  far  above  Paley  and  his  group  in 
spiritual  insight,  and  gave  him  a  sympathetic  understanding  of 
some  very  obscure  problems  in  religious  history.  The  best  of  his 
polemic  work  is  the  unanswerable  piece  of  destructive  criticism  on 
Professor  Rogers  and  the  extreme  supporters  of  the  "Analogy" 
in  the  essay  on  Bishop  Butler;  his  best  positive  contribution  to 
theology  is  the  explanation  why  religion  does  not  destroy  morality, 
in  the  "Ignorance  of  Man."  This  essay  is  wonderfully  ingenious 
and  plausible,  but  not  always  convincing  or  satisfying.  For  ex- 
ample, the  "screen"  theory  is  excellent  for  the  screened,  but  hard 
on  the  screen ;  in  fact,  it  is  simply  our  old  friend  the  Calvinistic 
doctrine  of  election  over  again,  in  a  less  extreme  and  shocking 
form.  That  ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all  immortal  souls  were  cre- 
ated simply  to  agonize  the  remaining  one  per  cent,  into  elevated 
spirituality,  is  not  quite  so  bad  as  that  they  were  created  for 
nothing  except  to  be  damned ;  but  there  is  the  same  division  into 
small  aristocracy  and  vast  rabble,  both  fixed  as  such  by  the 
Creator.  It  is  the  same  old  altar-piece  toned  down,  with  rags 
and  crusts  in  place  of  the  flames  of  hell.  The  truth  is,  a  thinker 
reared  under  an  aristocratic  polity  can  hardly  ever  get  it  out  of 
his  head  that  there  must  be  a  small  favored  "upper  class"  in  the 
divine  councils,  for  whose  behoof  the  great  mass  exist.  The  in- 
fluence of  earthly  on  divine  constitutions  will  bear  more  analysis 
than  it  has  received :  that  there  has  been  so  little  democracy  here 
is  unquestionably  the  reason  there  has  been  so  little  in  the  theo- 
ries of  the  hereafter.  Perhaps  God  is  more  of  a  democrat  than 
is  currently  allowed,  and  it  may  be  reserved  for  the  United  States 
to  renovate  theological  as  it  has  political  speculation.  That  the 


XXIV  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S   BAGEHOT. 

dirty  crowd  was  ever  meant  to  be  let  into  the  fine  parks  of  the 
future,  is  too  shocking  an  idea  from  the  aristocratic  standpoint  to 
be  admitted,  and  rarely  has  been ;  Bagehot  does  not  shut  them  out 
wholly,  but  preserves  due  subordination  of  ranks  by  reserving  the 
'•grand  stand"  for  the  spiritual  nobility,  —  evidently  holding  that 
the  spiritual  world  is  organized  on  a  "deferential"  system  like  the 
English  government,  which  by  a  happy  chance  is  the  best  model 
not  only  for  this  world  but  the  next. 

There  would  be  no  difficulty  in  extending  these  comments  to 
any  length,  —  the  difficulty  is  to  stop ;  but  I  have  said  quite 
enough,  and  perhaps  on  some  points  too  much.  And  after  all, 
what  has  been  said  of  other  great  writers  is  true  of  Bagehot  and 
indeed  of  every  great  writer,  —  the  best  answer  to  all  fault-finding 
is  to  read  him.  His  untimely  death  lost  the  world  a  great  store 
of  high  and  fine  enjoyment,  as  well  as  strong  and  satisfying 
thought ;  and  closing  my  intimate  daily  companionship  with  him 
seems  like  parting  from  one  who  is  at  once  a  powerful  teacher 
and  a  beloved  comrade. 

F.  M. 


BY    RICHARD    HOLT    HUTTON.* 

IT  is  inevitable,  I  suppose,  that  the  world  should  judge  of  a  man 
chiefly  by  what  it  has  gained  in  him  and  lost  by  his  death,  even 
though  a  very  little  reflection  might  sometimes  show  that  the  special 
qualities  which  made  him  so  useful  to  the  world  implied  others  of 
a  yet  higher  order,  in  which,  to  those  who  knew  him  well,  these 
more  conspicuous  characteristics  must  have  been  well-nigh  merged. 
And  while  of  course  it  has  given  me  great  pleasure,  as  it  must 
have  given  pleasure  to  all  Bagehot's  friends,  to'  hear  the  Chancel- 
lor of  the  Exchequer's  evidently  genuine  tribute  to  his  financial 
sagacity  in  the  Budget  speech  of  1877,  and  Lord  Granville's  eloquent 
acknowledgments  of  the  value  of  Bagehot's  political  counsels  as 
editor  of  the  Ecmwmht  in  the  speech  delivered  at  the  London  Uni- 
versity on  May  9,  1877,  I  have  sometimes  felt  somewhat  unreasonably 
vexed  that  those  who  appreciated  so  well  what  I  may  almost  call 
the  smallest  part  of  him,  appeared  to  know  so  little  of  the  essence 
of  him,  —  of  the  high-spirited,  buoyant,  subtle,  speculative  nature,  in 
which  the  imaginative  qualities  were  even  more  remarkable  than 
the  judgment,  and  were  indeed  at  the  root  of  all  that  was  strongest 
in  the  judgment;  of  the  gay  and  dashing  humor  which  was  the 
life  of  every  conversation  in  which  he  joined ;  and  of  the  vision- 
ary nature  to  which  the  commonest  things  often  seemed  the  most 
marvelous,  and  the  marvelous  things  the  most  intrinsically  probable. 
To  those  who  hear  of  Bagehot  only  as  an  original  political  econo- 
mist and  a  lucid  political  thinker,  a  curiously  false  image  of  him 
must  be  suggested.  If  they  are  among  the  multitude  misled  by 
Carlyle,  who  regard  all  political  economists  as  "the  dreary  professors 
of  a  dismal  science,"  they  will  probably  conjure  up  an  arid  dis- 
quisitionist  on  value  and  cost  of  production;  and  even  if  assured  of 
Bagehot's  imaginative  power,  they  may  perhaps  only  understand  by 
the  expression  that  capacity  for  feverish  preoccupation  which  makes 
the  mention  of  "Peel's  Act"  summon  up  to  the  faces  of  certain 
fanatics  a  hectic  glow,  or  the  rumor  of  paper  currencies  blanch 


*  Originally  published  in  the  Forlnii/My  Review;  republished  with  a  few 
changes  as  an  introduction  to  the  "Literary  Studies."  Some  of  his  allusions 
pertain  only  to  that  edition,  but  I  have  left  them  untouched.  —  En.  > 

(xxv) 


XXVI      THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

others  with  the  pallor  of  true  passion.  The  truth,  however,  is  that 
the  best  qualities  which  Bagehot  had,  both  as  economist  and  as 
politician,  were  of  a  kind  which  the  majority  of  economists  and 
politicians  do  not  specially  possess.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  was 
in  any  way  an  accident  that  he  was  an  original  thinker  in  either 
sphere;  far  from  it.  But  I  do  think  that  what  he  brought  to  politi- 
cal and  economic  science  he  brought  in  some  sense  from  outside 
their  normal  range,  —  that  the  man  of  business  and  the  financier 
in  him  fell  within  such  sharp  and  well-defined  limits  that  he  knew 
better  than  most  of  his  class  where  their  special  weakness  lay, 
and  where  their  special  functions  ended.  This,  at  all  events,  I  am 
quite  sure  of:  that  so  far  as  his  judgment  was  sounder  than  other 
men's,  —  and  on  many  subjects  it  was  much  sounder,  —  it  was  so 
not  in  spite  of,  but  in  consequence  of,  the  excursive  imagination 
and  vivid  humor  which  are  so  often  accused  of  betraying  otherwise 
sober  minds  into  dangerous  aberrations.  In  him  both  lucidity  and 
caution  were  directly  traceable  to  the  force  of  his  imagination. 

Walter  Bagehot  was  born  at  Langport,  on  Feb.  3,  1826.  Lang- 
port  is  an  old-fashioned  little  town  in  the  center  of  Somersetshire, 
which  in  early  days  returned  two  members  to  Parliament,  until 
the  burgesses  petitioned  Edward  I.  to  relieve  them  of  the  expense 
of  paying  their  members,  —  a  quaint  piece  of  economy  of  which 
Bagehot  frequently  made  humorous  boast.  The  town  is  still  a 
close  corporation,*  and  calls  its  mayor  by  the  old  Saxon  name  of 
"Portreeve";  and  Bagehot  himself  became  its  "deputy  recorder," 
as  well  as  a  magistrate  for  the  county.  Situated  at  the  point  where 
the  river  Parret  ceases  to  be  navigable,  Langport  has  always  been 
a  center  of  trade;  and  here  in  the  last  century  Mr.  Samuel  Stuckey 
founded  the  Somersetshire  Bank,  which  has  since  spread  over  the 
entire  county,  and  is  now  the  largest  private  bank  of  issue  in 
England.  Bagehot  was  the  only  surviving  child  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Watson  Bagehot,  who  was  for  thirty  years  managing  director  and 
vice-chairman  of  Stuckey's  Banking  Company,  and  was  (as  Bagehot 
was  fond  of  recalling),  before  he  resigned  that  position,  the  oldest 
joint-stock  banker  in  the  United  Kingdom.  Bagehot  succeeded  his 
father  as  vice-chairman  of  the  bank  when  the  latter  retired  in  his 
old  age.  His  mother,  a  Miss  Stuckey,  was  a  niece  of  Mr.  Samuel 
Stuckey,  the  founder  of  the  Banking  Company,  and  was  a  very 
pretty  and  lively  woman,  who  had,  by  her  previous  marriage  with 
a  son  of  Dr.  Estlin  of  Bristol,  been  brought  at  an  early  age  into 
an  intellectual  atmosphere  by  which  she  had  greatly  profited.  There 


*  The  corporation  of  Langport  was  done  away  with,  as  was  that  of 
every  one  of  the  few  remaining  close  corporations  in  England,  during  Mr. 
Gladstone's  government,  by  the  Municipal  Corporation  Act  of  1883.  — 
E.  H.  H. 


MEMOIR.  XXV11 

is  no  doubt  that  Bagehot  was  greatly  indebted  to  the  constant  and 
careful  sympathy  in  all  his  studies  that  both  she  and  his  father 
gave  him,  as  well  as  to  a  very  studious  disposition,  for  his  future 
success.  Dr.  Prichard,  the  well-known  ethnologist,  was  her  brother- 
in-law;  and  her  son's  marked  taste  for  science  was  first  awakened 
in  Dr.  Prichard's  house  in  Park  Row,  where  Bagehot  often  spent 
his  half-holidays  while  he  was  a  schoolboy  in  Bristol.  To  Dr. 
Prichard's  "Races  of  Man"  may  indeed  be  first  traced  that  keen 
interest  in  the  speculative  side  of  ethnological  research,  the  results 
of  which  are  best  seen  in  Bagehot's  book  on  "Physics  and  Politics." 
I  first  met  Bagehot  at  University  College,  London,  when  we 
were  neither  of  us  over  seventeen.  I  was  struck  by  the  questions 
put  by  a  lad  with  large  dark  eyes  and  florid  complexion  to  the 
late  Professor  De  Morgan,  who  was  lecturing  to  us,  as  his  custom 
was,  on  the  great  difficulties  involved  in  what  we  thought  we  all 
understood  perfectly,  —  such,  for  example,  as  the  meaning  of  0,  of 
negative  quantities,  or  the  grounds  of  probable  expectation.  Bage- 
hot's questions  showed  that  he  had  both  read  and  thought  more 
on  these  subjects  than  most  of  us  ;  and  I  was  eager  to  make  his 
acquaintance,  which  soon  ripened  into  an  intimate  friendship  in 
which  there  was  never  any  intermission  between  that  time  and  his 
death.  Some  will  regret  that  Bagehot  did  not  go  to  Oxford  ;  the 
reason  being  that  his  father,  who  was  a  Unitarian,  objected  on  prin- 
ciple to  all  doctrinal  tests,  and  would  never  have  permitted  a  son  of 
his  to  go  to  either  of  the  older  universities  while  those  tests  were 
required  of  the  undergraduates.  And  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that 
University  College,  London,  was  not  at  that  time  a  much  more 
awakening  place  of  education  for  young  men  than  almost  any  Oxford 
college.  Bagehot  himself,  I  suspect,  thought  so.  Fifteen  years 
later  he  wrote,  in  his  essay  on  Shelley: — "A  distinguished  pupil 
of  the  University  of  Oxford  once  observed  to  us,  'The  use  of  the 
University  of  Oxford  is,  that  no  one  can  overread  himself  there. 
The  appetite  for  knowledge  is  repressed.'"  And  whatever  may  have 
been  defective  in  University  College,  London,  —  and  no  doubt  much 
was  defective,  —  nothing  of  the  kind  could  have  been  said  of  it 
when  we  were  students  there.  Indeed,  in  those  years  London  was 
a  place  with  plenty  of  intellectual  stimulus  in  it  for  young  men, 
while  in  University  College  itself  there  was  quite  enough  vivacious 
and  original  teaching  to  make  that  stimulus  available  to  the  full. 
It  is  sometimes  said  that  it  needs  the  quiet  of  a  country  town, 
remote  from  the  capital,  to  foster  the  love  of  genuine  study  in 
young  men.  But  of  this  at  least  I  am  sure  :  that  Gower  Street 
and  Oxford  Street,  and  the  New  Road,  and  the  dreary  chain  of 


XXviii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

squares  from  Euston  to  Bloomsbury,  were  the  scenes  of  discussions 
as  eager  and  as  abstract  as  ever  were  the  sedate  cloisters  or  the 
flowery  river  meadows  of  Cambridge  or  Oxford.  Once,  I  remember, 
in  the  vehemence  of  our  argument  as  to  whether  the  so-called  logical 
principle  of  identity  (A  is  A)  were  entitled  to  rank  as  "a  law  of 
thought"  or  only  as  a  postulate  of  language,  Bagehot  and  I  wan- 
dered up  and  down  Regent  Street  for  something  like  two  hours  in 
the  vain  attempt  to  find  Oxford  Street. 

"And  yet  what  days  were  those,  Parmenides, 
When  we  were  young,  when  we  could  number  friends 
In  all  the  Italian  cities  like  ourselves  ; 
When  with  elated  hearts  we  joined  your  train, 
Ye  sun-born  virgins,  on  the  road  of  truth  ! 
Then  we  could  still  enjoy,  then  neither  thought 
Nor  outward  things  were  closed  and  dead  to  us, 
But  we  received  the  shock  of  mighty  thoughts 
On  single  minds  with  a  pure  natural  joy ; 
And  if  the  sacred  load  oppressed  our  brain, 
We  had  the  power  to  feel  the  pressure  eased, 
The  brow  unbound,  the  thoughts  flow  free  again 
In  the  delightful  commerce  of  the  world."* 

Bagehot  has  himself  described,  evidently  from  his  own  expe- 
rience, the  kind  of  life  we  lived  in  those  days,  in  an  article  on 
"Oxford  Reform  "  :  f — "  So  too  in  youth,  the  real  plastic  energy  is  not 
in  tutors  or  lectures  or  in  books  '  got  up, '  but  in  Wordsworth  and 
Shelley  ;  in  the  books  that  all  read  because  all  like  ;  in  what  all 
talk  of  because  all  are  interested  ;  in  the  argumentative  walk  or 
disputatious  lounge  ;  in  the  impact  of  young  thought  upon  young 
thought,  of  fresh  thought  on  fresh  thought,  of  hot  thought  on  hot 
thought  ;  in  mirth  and  refutation,  in  ridicule  and  laughter  :  for 
these  are  the  free  play  of  the  natural  mind,  and  these  cannot  be 
got  without  a  college." 

The  late  Professor  Sewell,  when  asked  to  give  his  pupils  some 
clear  conception  of  the  old  Greek  sophists,  is  said  to  have  replied 
that  he  could  not  do  this  better  than  by  referring  them  to  the 
professors  of  University  College,  London.  I  do  not  think  there 
was  much  force  in  the  sarcasm;  for  though  Professor  T.  Hewitt 
Key,  whose  restless  and  ingenious  mind  led  him  many  a  wild  dance 
after  etymological  Will-of-the-Wisps,  —  I  remember,  for  instance,  his 

*  Matthew  Arnold,  "Empedocles  on  Etna,"  —  an  early  poem,  omitted 
from  some  later  editions,  but  included  in  that  of  1888  (Macraillan's,  3  vols.). 

t  Prospective  Review  for  August,  1852 ;  a  paper  too  strictly  temporary  and 
practical  in  its  aim  for  republication  now.  —  R.  H.  H.  [See  extract  follow- 
ing this  memoir.] 


MEMOIR.  XXIX 


cheerfully  accepting  the  suggestion  that  "better"  and  "bad,"  melior 
and  malus,  came  from  the  same  root,  and  accounting  for  it  by  the 
probable  disposition  of  hostile  tribes  to  call  everything  bad  which 
their  enemies  called  good,  and  everything  good  which  their  enemies 
called  bad,  —  may  have  had  in  him  much  of  the  brilliance,  and 
something  also,  perhaps,  of  the  flightiness  of  the  old  sophist,  it 
would  be  hard  to  imagine  men  more  severe  in  exposing  pretentious 
conceits  and  dispelling  dreams  of  theoretic  omniscience  than  Pro- 
fessors De  Morgan,  Maiden,  and  Long.  De  Morgan,  who  at  that 
time  was  in  the  midst  of  his  controversy  on  formal  logic  with  Sir 
William  Hamilton,  was  indeed  characterized  by  the  great  Edinburgh 
metaphysician  as  "profound  in  mathematics,  curious  in  logic,  but 
wholly  deficient  in  architectonic  power"  ;  yet  for  all  that,  his  lec- 
tures on  the  Theory  of  Limits  were  a  far  better  logical  discipline 
for  young  men  than  Sir  William  Hamilton's  on  the  Law  of  the 
Unconditioned  or  the  Quantification  of  the  Predicate.  Professor 
Maiden  contrived  to  imbue  us  with  a  love  of  that  fastidious  taste 
and  that  exquisite  nicety  in  treating  questions  of  scholarship,  which 
has  perhaps  been  more  needed  and  less  cultivated  in  Gower  Street 
than  any  other  of  the  higher  elements  of  a  college  education  ;  while 
Professor  Long's  caustic  irony,  accurate  and  almost  ostentatiously 
dry  learning,  and  profoundly  stoical  temperament,  were  as  antithetic 
to  the  temper  of  the  sophist  as  human  qualities  could  possibly  be. 
The  time  of  our  college  life  was  pretty  nearly  contemporaneous 
with  the  life  of  the  Anti-Corn-Law  League  and  the  great  agitation 
in  favor  of  Free  Trade.  To  us  this  was  useful  rather  from  the 
general  impulse  it  gave  to  political  discussion,  and  the  literary 
curiosity  it  excited  in  us  as  to  the  secret  of  true  eloquence,  than 
because  it  anticipated  in  any  considerable  degree  the  later  acquired 
taste  for  economic  science.  Bagehot  and  I  seldom  missed  an  oppor- 
tunity of  hearing  together  the  matchless  practical  disquisitions  of 
Mr.  Cobden,  —  lucid  and  homely,  yet  glowing  with  intense  con- 
viction, —  the  profound  passion  and  careless  though  artistic  scorn 
of  Mr.  Bright,  and  the  artificial  and  elaborately  ornate  periods, 
and  witty  though  somewhat  ad  captamdum  epigrams,  of  Mr.  W.  J. 
Fox  (afterwards  M.  P.  for  Oldham).  Indeed,  we  scoured  London 
together  to  hear  any  kind  of  oratory  that  had  gained  a  reputation 
of  its  own,  and  compared  all  we  heard  with  the  declamation  of 
Burke  and  the  rhetoric  of  Macaulay,  many  of  whose  later  essays 
came  out  and  were  eagerly  discussed  by  us  while  we  were  together 
at  college.  In  our  conversations  on  these  essays,  I  remember  that 
I  always  bitterly  attacked,  while  Bngehot  moderately  defended,  the 
glorification  of  compromise  which  marks  all  Macaulay's  writings. 


XXX       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Even  in  early  youth  Bagehot  had  much  of  that  "animated  modera- 
tion" -which  he  praises  so  highly  in  his  latest  work.  He  was  a 
voracious  reader,  especially  of  history,  and  had  a  far  truer  apprecia- 
tion of  historical  conditions  than  most  young  thinkers;  indeed,  the 
broad  historical  sense  which  characterized  him  from  first  to  last 
made  him  more  alive  than  ordinary  students  to  the  urgency  of  cir- 
cumstance, and  far  less  disposed  to  indulge  in  abstract  moral  criti- 
cism from  a  modern  point  of  view.  On  theology,  as  on  all  other 
subjects,  Bagehot  was  at  this  time  more  conservative  than  myself, 
he  sharing  his  mother's  orthodoxy,  and  I  at  that  time  accepting 
heartily  the  Unitarianism  of  my  own  people.  Theology  was,  how- 
ever, I  think,  the  only  subject  on  which  in  later  life  we  —  to  some 
degree,  at  least  —  exchanged  places  ;  though  he  never  at  any  time, 
however  doubtful  he  may  have  become  on  some  of  the  cardinal 
issues  of  historical  Christianity,  accepted  the  Unitarian  position. 
Indeed,  within  the  last  two  or  three  years  of  his  life,  he  spoke  on 
one  occasion  of  the  Trinitarian  doctrine  as  probably  the  best 
account  which  human  reason  could  render  of  the  mystery  of  the 
self-existent  mind. 

In  those  early  days  Bagehot's  manner  was  often  supercilious. 
We  used  to  attack  him  for  his  intellectual  arrogance, — his  vftpig  we 
called  it  in  our  college  slang  ;  a  quality  which  I  believe  was  not 
really  in  him,  though  he  had  then  much  of  its  external  appearance. 
Nevertheless,  his  genuine  contempt  for  what  was  intellectually  feeble 
was  not  accompanied  by  an  even  adequate  appreciation  of  his  own 
powers.  At  college,  however,  his  satirical  "Hear,  hear"  was  a 
formidable  sound  in  the  debating  society,  and  one  which  took  the 
heart  out  of  many  a  younger  speaker;  and  the  ironical  "How 
much  ? "  with  which  in  conversation  he  would  meet  an  ovQr-eloquent 
expression,  was  always  of  a  nature  to  reduce  a  man,  as  the  mathe- 
matical phrase  goes,  to  his  "lowest  terms."  In  maturer  life  he 
became  much  gentler  and  mellower,  and  often  even  delicately  con- 
siderate for  others;  but  his  inner  scorn  for  ineffectual  thought 
remained  in  some  degree,  though  it  was  very  reticently  expressed, 
to  the  last.  For  instance,  I  remember  his  attacking  me  for  my 
mildness  in  criticizing  a  book  which,  though  it  professed  to  rest  on 
a  basis  of  clear  thought,  really  missed  all  its  points.  "There  is  a 
pale,  whity -brown  substance,"  he  wrote  to  me,  "in  the  man's  books, 
which  people  who  don't  think  take  for  thought,  but  it  isn't  ; "  and 
he  upbraided  me  much  for  not  saying  plainly  that  the  man  was  a 
muff.  In  his  youth  this  scorn  for  anything  like  the  vain  beating 
of  the  wingrs  in  the  attempt  to  think  was  at  its  maximum.  It  was 
increased,  I  think,  by  that  which  was  one  of  his  greatest  qualities,  — 


MEMOIR.  XXXi 

his  remarkable  ' '  detachment "  of  mind ;  in  other  words,  his  compara- 
tive inaccessibility  to  the  contagion  of  blind  sympathy.  Most  men, 
more  or  less  unconsciously,  shrink  from  even  thinking  what  they 
feel  to  be  out  of  sympathy  with  the  feelings  of  their  neighbors, 
unless  under  some  strong  incentive  to  do  so;  and  in  this  way  the 
sources  of  much  true  and  important  criticism  are  dried  up  through 
the  mere  diffusion  and  ascendancy  of  conventional  but  sincere  habits 
of  social  judgment.  And  no  doubt  for  the  greater  number  of  us 
this  is  much  the  best  :  we  are  worth  more  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
stituting and  strengthening  the  cohesive  power  of  the  social  bond 
than  we  should  ever  be  worth  for  the  purpose  of  criticizing  feebly  — 
and  with  little  effect,  perhaps,  except  the  disorganizing  effect  of 
seeming  ill-nature  —  the  various  incompetencies  and  miscarriages  of 
our  neighbors'  intelligence.  But  Bagehot's  intellect  was  always  far 
too  powerful  and  original  to  render  him  available  for  the  function 
of  mere  social  cement;  and  full  as  he  was  of  genuine  kindness  and 
hearty  personal  affections,  he  certainly  had  not  in  any  high  degree 
that  sensitive  instinct  as  to  what  others  would  feel  which  so  often 
shapes  even  the  thoughts  of  men,  and  still  oftener  their  speech,  into 
mild  and  complaisant  but  unmeaning  and  unfruitful  forms. 

Thus  it  has  been  said  that  in  his  very  amusing  article  on  Crabb 
Robinson,  published  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  August,  1869,  he 
was  more  than  a  little  rough  in  his  delineation  of  that  quaint  old 
friend  of  our  earlier  days  ;  and  certainly  there  is  something  of  the 
naturalist's  realistic  manner  of  describing  the  habits  of  a  new 
species  in  the  paper,  though  there  is  not  a  grain  of  malice  or  even 
depreciatory  bias  in  it,  and  though  there  is  a  very  sincere  regard 
manifested  throughout.  But  that  essay  will  illustrate  admirably 
what  I  mean  by  saying  that  Bagehot's  detachment  of  mind,  and 
the  deficiency  in  him  of  any  aptitude  for  playing  the  part  of  mere 
social  cement,  tended  to  give  the  impression  of  an  intellectual  arro- 
gance which  —  certainly  in  the  sense  of  self-esteem  or  self-assertion — 
did  not  in  the  least  belong  to  him.  In  the  essay  I  have  just  men- 
tioned he  describes  how  Crabb  Robinson,  when  he  gave  his  some- 
what famous  breakfast  parties,  used  to  forget  to  make  the  tea,  then 
lost  his  keys,  then  told  a  long  story  about  a  bust  of  Wieland  during 
the  extreme  agony  of  his  guests'  appetites,  and  finally,  perhaps, 
withheld  the  cup  of  tea  he  had  at  last  poured  out  while  he  regaled 
them  with  a  poem  of  Wordsworth's  or  a  diatribe  against  Hazlitt. 
And  Bagehot  adds  :  —  "The  more  astute  of  his  guests  used  to  break- 
fast before  they  came  :  and  then  there  was  much  interest  in  seeing 
a  steady  literary  man,  who  did  not  understand  the  region,  in  ago- 
nies at  having  to  hear  three  stories  before  he  got  his  tea,  one  again 


XXX11  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

between  his  milk  and  his  sugar,  another  between  his  butter  and  his 
toast,  and  additional  zest  in  making  a  stealthy  inquiry  that  was 
sure  to  intercept  the  coming  delicacies  by  bringing  on  Schiller  and 
Goethe."  The  only  "astute"  person  referred  to  was,  I  imagine, 
Bagehot  himself,  who  confessed  to  me,  much  to  my  amusement,  that 
this  was  always  his  own  precaution  before  one  of  Crabb  Robinson's 
breakfasts.  I  doubt  if  anybody  else  ever  thought  of  it.  It  was 
very  characteristic  in  him  that  he  should  have  not  only  noticed  — 
for  that,  of  course,  any  one  might  do  —  this  weak  element  in  Crabb 
Robinson's  breakfasts,  but  should  have  kept  it  so  distinctly  before 
his  mind  as  to  make  it  the  center,  as  it  were,  of  a  policy,  and  the 
opportunity  of  a  mischievous  stratagem  to  try  the  patience  of  others. 
It  showed  how  much  of  the  social  naturalist  there  was  in  him.  If 
any  race  of  animals  could  understand  a  naturalist's  account  of  their 
ways  and  habits,  and  of  the  devices  he  adopted  to  get  those  ways 
and  habits  more  amusingly  or  instructively  displayed  before  him, 
no  doubt  they  would  think  that  he  was  a  cynic  ;  and  it  was  this 
intellectual  detachment,  as  of  a  social  naturalist,  from  the  society 
in  which  he  moved,  which  made  Bagehot's  remarks  often  seem 
somewhat  harsh,  when  in  fact  they  were  animated  not  only  by  no 
suspicion  of  malice,  but  by  the  most  cordial  and  earnest  friendliness. 
Owing  to  this  separateness  of  mind,  he  described  more  strongly  and 
distinctly  traits  which,  when  delineated  by  a  friend,  we  expect  to 
find  painted  in  the  softened  manner  of  one  who  is  half  disposed  to 
imitate  or  adopt  them. 

Yet,  though  I  have  used  the  word  "naturalist"  to  denote  the 
keen  and  solitary  observation  with  which  Bagehot  watched  society, 
no  word  describes  him  worse  if  we  attribute  to  it  any  of  that  cold- 
ness and  stillness  of  curiosity  which  we  are  apt  to  associate  with 
scientific  vigilance.  Especially  in  his  youth,  buoyancy,  vivacity, 
velocity  of  thought  were  of  the  essence  of  the  impression  which  he 
made.  He  had  high  spirits  and  great  capacities  for  enjoyment  ; 
great  sympathies,  indeed,  with  the  old  English  Cavalier.  In  his 
essay  on  Macaulay  he  paints  that  character  with  profound  sympathy. 

"  What  historian,  indeed,"  he  says,  "  has  ever  estimated  the  Cavalier 
character  ?  There  is  Clarendon,  the  grave,  rhetorical,  decorous  lawyer ; 
piling  words,  congealing  arguments ;  very  stately,  a  little  grim.  There  is 
Hume,  the  Scotch  metaphysician,  who  has  made  out  the  best  case  for  such 
people  as  never  were, — for  a  Charles  who  never  died,  for  a  Strafford  who 
could  never  have  been  attainted;  a  saving,  calculating  North-countryman, 
fat.  impassive,  who  lived  on  eightpence  a  day.  What  have  these  people 
to  do  with  an  enjoying  English  gentleman  ?  Talk  of  the  ways  of  spread- 
ing a  wholesome  Conservatism  throughout  the  country :  ...  as  far  as  com- 
municating and  establishing  your  creed  is  concerned,  try  a  little  pleasure. 


MEMOIR.  XXX111 


The  way  to  keep  up  old  customs  is,  to  enjoy  old  customs  ;  the  way  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  present  state  of  things  is,  to  enjoy  that  state  of  things. 
Over  the  'Cavalier'  mind  this  world  passes  with  a  thrill  of  delight;  there 
is  an  exultation  in  a  daily  event,  zest  in  the  'regular  thing,'  joy  at  an  old 
feast." 

And  that  aptly  represents  himself.  Such  arrogance  as  he  seemed 
to  have  in  early  life  was  the  arrogance  as  much  of  enjoyment  as  of 
detachment  of  mind  ;  the  insouciance  of  the  old  Cavalier  as  much 
at  least  as  the  calm  of  a  mind  not  accessible  to  the  contagion  of 
social  feelings.  He  always  talked,  in  youth,  of  his  spirits  as  incon- 
veniently high  :  and  once  wrote  to  me  that  he  did  not  think  they 
were  quite  as  "boisterous"  as  they  had  been,  and  that  his  fellow- 
creatures  were  not  sorry  for  the  abatement  ;  nevertheless,  he  added, 
"I  am  quite  fat,  gross,  and  ruddy."  He  was  indeed  excessively  fond 
of  hunting,  vaulting,  and  almost  all  muscular  effort  ;  so  that  his 
life  would  be  wholly  misconceived  by  any  one  who,  hearing  of  his 
"detachment"  of  thought,  should  picture  his  mind  as  a  vigilantly 
observant,  far-away  intelligence,  —  such  as  Hawthorne's,  for  example. 
He  liked  to  be  in  the  thick  of  the  melee  when  talk  grew  warm, 
though  he  was  never  so  absorbed  in  it  as  not  to  keep  his  mind 
cool.  . 

As  I  said,  Bagehot  was  a  Somersetshire  man,  with  all  the  rich- 
ness of  nature  and  love  for  the  external  glow  of  life  which  the 
most  characteristic  counties  of  the  Southwest  of  England  contrive 
to  give  to  their  most  characteristic  sons. 

"This  northwest  corner  of  Spain,"  he  wrote  once  to  a  newspaper  from 
the  Pyrenees,  "is  the  only  place  out  of  England  where  I  should  like  to  live. 
It  is  a  sort  of  better  Devonshire  :  the  coast  is  of  the  same  kind,  the  sun 
is  more  brilliant,  the  sea  is  more  brilliant,  and  there  are  mountains  in  the 
background.  I  have  seen  some  more  beautiful  places,  and  many  grander ; 
but  I  should  not  like  to  live  in  them.  As  Mr.  Emerson  puts  it,  '  I  do  not 
want  to  go  to  heaven  before  my  time.'  My  English  nature,  by  early  use  and 
long  habit,  is  tied  to  a  certain  kind  of  scenery,  soon  feels  the  want  of  it, 
and  is  apt  to  be  alarmed  as  well  as  pleased  at  perpetual  snow  and  all 
sorts  of  similar  beauties.  But  here,  about  San  Sebastian,  you  have  the  best 
England  can  give  you  (at  least  if  you  hold,  as  I  do,  that  Devonshire  is  the 
finest  of  our  counties),  and  the  charm,  the  ineffable,  indescribable  charm 
of  the  South  too.  Probably  the  sun  has  some  secret  effect  on  the  nerv- 
ous system  that  makes  one  inclined  to  be  pleased  ;  but  the  golden  light 
lies  upon  everything,  and  one  fancies  that  one  is  charmed  only  by  the 
outward  loveliness." 

The  vivacity  and  warm  coloring  of  the  landscapes  of  the  South 
of  England  certainly  had  their  full  share  in  molding  hie  tastes,  and 
possibly  even  his  style. 

Bagehot  took  the   mathematical   scholarship   with  his   Bachelor's 
degree  in  the  University  of  London  in  1846,  and   the  gold  medal  in 
VOL.  I.— c 


XXXvi  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


eo  —  the  Catholic  Church  was  opposed  to  inquiry  and  reasoning;  but 
it  is  not  so  now  and  here :  loudly,  from  the  pens  of  a  hundred  writers, 
from  the  tongues  of  a  thousand  pulpits,  in  every  note  of  thrilling  scorn  and 
exulting  derision,  she  proclaims  the  contrary.  Be  she  Christ's  workman  or 
Antichrist's,  she  knows  her  work  too  well.  '  Reason,  reason,  reason  1 '  ex- 
claims she  to  the  philosophers  of  this  world ;  '  put  in  practice  what  you 
teach,  if  you  would  have  others  believe  it;  be  consistent;  do  not  prate  to 
us  of  private  judgment  when  you  are  but  yourselves  repeating  what  you 
heard  in  the  nursery,  —  ill-mumbled  remnants  of  a  Catholic  tradition.  No ! 
exemplify  what  you  command,  —  inquire  and  make  search;  seek,  though  we 
warn  you  that  ye  will  never  find — yet  do  as  ye  will.  Shut  yourself  up  in 
a  room,  make  your  mind  a  blank,  go  down  (as  ye  speak)  into  the  "  depths 
of  your  consciousness,"  scrutinize  the  mental  structure,  inquire  for  the  ele- 
ments of  belief,  spend  years,  your  best  years,  in  the  occupation ;  and  at 
length,  when  your  eyes  are  dim  and  your  brain  hot  and  your  hand  un- 
steady, then  reckon  what  you  have  gained  :  see  if  you  cannot  count  on 
your  fingers  the  certainties  you  have  reached ;  reflect  which  of  them  you 
doubted  yesterday,  which  you  may  disbelieve  to-morrow :  or  rather,  make 
haste,  assume  at  random  some  essential  credettda,  write  down  your  inevitable 
postulates,  enumerate  your  necessary  axioms ;  toil  on,  toil  on,  spin  your 
spider's-web,  adore  j'our  own  souls ;  or  if  ye  prefer  it,  choose  some  German 
nostrum, — try  the  "intellectual  intuition,"  or  the  "pure  reason,"  or  the  "intel- 
ligible ideas,"  or  the  mesmeric  clairvoyance, — and  when  so  or  somehow  you 
have  attained  your  results,  try  them  on  mankind.  Don't  go  out  into  the 
highways  and  hedges,  —  it  is  unnecessary:  ring  the  bell,  call  in  the  servants, 
give  them  a  course  of  lectures ;  cite  Aristotle,  review  Descartes,  panegyrize 
Plato,  and  see  if  the  bonne  will  understand  you.  It  is  you  that  say,  "Vox 
populi,  vox  Dei "  ;  but  you  see  the  people  reject  you.  Or  suppose  you  succeed, 
—  what  you  call  succeeding :  your  books  are  read ;  for  three  weeks  or  even  a 
season  you  are  the  idol  of  the  salons;  your  hard  words  are  on  the  lips  of 
women,  —  then  a  change  comes:  a  new  actress  appears  at  the  Theatre 
Francais  or  the  Opera, — her  charms  eclipse  your  theories;  or  a  great  catas- 
trophe occurs,  political  liberty  (it  is  said)  is  annihilated,  —  "II  faut  se  faire 
mouchard"  is  the  observation  of  scoffers:  anyhow,  you  are  forgotten; 
fifty  years  may  be  the  gestation  of  a  philosophy,  not  three  its  life;  before 
long,  before  you  go  to  your  grave,  your  six  disciples  leave  you  for  some 
newer  master  or  to  set  up  for  themselves.  The  poorest  priest  in  the 
remotest  region  of  the  Basses  Alpes  has  more  power  over  men's  souls  than 
human  cultivation:  his  ill-mouthed  masses  move  women's  souls  —  can  you? 
Ye  scoff  at  Jupiter :  yet  he  at  least  was  believed  in,  you  never  have  been ; 
idol  for  idol,  the  dethroned  is  better  than  the  wwthroned.  No :  if  you  would 
reason,  if  you  would  teach,  if  you  would  speculate,  come  to  us.  We  have 
our  premises  ready :  years  upon  years  before  you  were  born,  intellects  whom 
the  best  of  you  delight  to  magnify,  toiled  to  systematize  the  creed  of  ages ; 
years  upon  years  after  you  are  dead,  better  heads  than  yours  will  find  new 
matter  there  to  define,  to  divide,  to  arrange.  Consider  the  hundred  volumes 
of  Aquinas:  which  of  you  desire  a  higher  life  than  that, — to  deduce,  to 
subtilize,  discriminate,  systematize,  and  decide  the  highest  truth,  and  to  be 
believed  ?  yet  such  was  his  luck,  his  enjoyment ;  he  was  what  you  would 
be.  No,  no:  credile,  credite.  Ours  is  the  life  of  speculation;  the  cloister  is 
the  home  for  the  student.  Philosophy  is  stationary,  Catholicism  progressive. 


MEMOIR.  XXXV11 

You  call,  we  are  heard  — '  etc.,  etc.  So  speaks  each  preacher  according  to 
his  ability.  And  when  the  dust  and  noise  of  present  controversies  have 
passed  away,  and  in  the  silence  of  the  night  some  grave  historian  writes 
out  the  tale  of  half-forgotten  times,  let  him  not  forget  to  observe  that  skill- 
fully as  the  mediaeval  Church  subdued  the  superstitious  cravings  of  a  pain- 
ful and  barbarous  age,  in  after  years  she  dealt  more  discerningly  still  with 
the  feverish  excitement,  the  feeble  vanities,  and  the  dogmatic  impatience 
of  an  over-intellectual  generation." 

It  is  obvious,  I  think,  both  from  the  poem  and  from  these  reflec- 
tions, that  what  attracted  Bagehot  in  the  Church  of  Rome  was  the 
historical  prestige  and  social  authority  which  she  had  accumulated 
in  believing  and  uncritical  ages  for  use  in  the  unbelieving  and  criti- 
cal age  in  which  we  live;  while  what  he  condemned  and  dreaded 
in  her  was  her  tendency  to  use  her  power  over  the  multitude  for 
purposes  of  a  low  ambition. 

And  as  I  am  on  this  subject,  this  will  be,  I  think,  the  best 
opportunity  I  shall  have  to  say  what  I  have  got  to  say  of  Bagehot's 
later  religious  belief,  without  returning  to  it  when  I  have  to  deal 
with  a  period  in  which  the  greatest  part  of  his  spare  intellectual 
energy  was  given  to  other  subjects.  I  do  not  think  that  the 
religious  affections  were  very  strong  in  Bagehot's  mind;  but  the 
primitive  religious  instincts  certainly  were.  From  childhood  he 
was  what  he  certainly  remained  to  the  last,  in  spite  of  the  rather 
antagonistic  influence  of  the  able  scientific  group  of  men  from 
whom  he  learned  so  much,  —  a  thorough  transcendentalist ;  by  which 
I  mean,  one  who  could  never  doubt  that  there  was  a  real  founda- 
tion of  the  universe  distinct  from  the  outward  show  of  its  superficial 
qualities,  and  that  the  substance  is  never  exhaustively  expressed  in 
these  qualities.  He  often  repeats  in  his  essays  Shelley's  fine  line, 
"Lift  not  the  painted  veil  which  those  who  live  call  life;"  and 
the  essence  at  least  of  the  idea  in  it  haunted  him  from  his  very 
childhood.  In  the  essay  on  Hartley  Coleridge,  —  perhaps  the  most 
perfect  in  style  of  any  of  his  writings, — he  describes  most  power- 
fully, and  evidently  in  great  measure  from  his  own  experience,  the 
mysterious  confusion  between  appearances  and  realities  which  so 
bewildered  little  Hartley:  the  difficulty  that  he  complained  of  in 
distinguishing  between  the  various  Hartleys,  —  "picture  Hartley," 
"shadow  Hartley,"  ["echo  Hartley,"]  —  and  between  Hartley  the 
subject  and  Hartley  the  object,  the  enigmatic  blending  of  which  last 
two  Hartleys  the  child  expressed  by  catching  hold  of  his  own  arm, 
and  then  calling  himself  the  " catch-me-fast  Hartley."  And  in 
dilating  on  this  bewildering  experience  of  the  child's,  Bagehot  bor- 
rows from  his  own  recollections:  — 


XXXviii        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"All  children  have  a  world  of  their  own,  as  distinct  from  that  of  the 
grown  people  who  gravitate  around  them  as  the  dreams  of  girlhood  from 
our  prosaic  life,  or  the  ideas  of  the  kitten  that  plays  with  the  falling  leaves 
from  those  of  her  carnivorous  mother  that  catches  mice  and  is  sedulous  in 
her  domestic  duties.  But  generally,  about  this  interior  existence,  children 
are  dumb.  You  have  warlike  ideas  ;  but  you  cannot  say  to  a  sinewy  relative, 
'  My  dear  aunt,  I  wonder  when  the  big  bush  in  the  garden  will  begin  to 
walk  about ;  I'm  sure  it's  a  crusader,  and  I  was  cutting  it  all  the  day  with 
my  steel  sword.  But  what  do  you  think,  aunt?  for  I'm  puzzled  about  its 
legs,  because  you  see,  aunt,  it  has  only  one  stalk ;  and  besides,  aunt,  the 
leaves.'  You  cannot  remark  this  in  secular  life;  but  you  hack  at  the  infeli- 
citous bush  till  you  do  not  altogether  reject  the  idea  that  your  small  garden 
is  Palestine,  and  yourself  the  most  adventurous  of  knights." 

They  have  a  tradition  in  the  family  that  this  is  but  a  fragment 
from  Bagehot's  own  imaginative  childhood,  and  certainly  this  vis- 
ionary element  in  him  was  very  vivid  to  the  last.  However,  the 
transcendental  or  intellectual  basis  of  religious  belief  was  soon 
strengthened  in  him,  as  readers  of  his  remarkable  paper  on  Bishop 
Butler  will  easily  see,  by  those  moral  and  retributive  instincts  which 
warn  us  of  the  meaning  and  consequences  of  guilt :  — 

"The  moral  principle,"  he  wrote  in  that  essay,  "(whatever  may  be  said 
to  the  contrary  by  complacent  thinkers,)  is  really  and  to  most  men  a  princi- 
ple of  fear.  .  .  .  Conscience  is  the  condemnation  of  ourselves ;  we  expect 
a  penalty.  As  the  Greek  proverb  teaches,  '  Where  there  is  shame  there  is 
fear.'  .  .  .  How  to  be  free  from  this,  is  the  question ;  how  to  get  loose 
from  this ;  how  to  be  rid  of  the  secret  tie  which  binds  the  strong  man  and 
cramps  his  pride,  and  makes  him  angry  at  the  beauty  of  the  universe, — 
which  will  not  let  him  go  forth  like  a  great  animal,  like  the  king  of  the  forest, 
in  the  glory  of  his  might,  but  restrains  him  with  an  inner  fear  and  a 
secret  foreboding  that  if  he  do  but  exalt  himself  he  shall  be  abased,  if  he 
do  but  set  forth  his  own  dignity  he  will  offend  ONE  who  will  deprive  him 
of  it.  This,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out,  is  the  source  of  the  bloody  rites 
of  heathendom." 

And  then,  after  a  powerful  passage,  in  which  he  describes  the 
sacrificial  superstitions  of  men  like  Achilles,  he  returns,  with  a  flash 
of  his  own  peculiar  humor,  to  Bishop  Butler,  thus:  — 

"Of  course  it  is  not  this  kind  of  fanaticism  that  we  impute  to  a  prelate 
of  the  English  Church :  human  sacrifices  are  not  respectable,  and  Achilles 
was  not  rector  of  Stanhope.  But  though  the  costume  and  circumstances 
of  life  change,  the  human  heart  does  not;  its  feelings  remain.  The  same 
anxiety,  the  same  consciousness  of  personal  sin  which  lead  in  barbarous 
times  to  what  has  been  described,  show  themselves  in  civilized  life  as  well. 
In  this  quieter  period,  their  great  manifestation  is  scrupulosity ; " 

which  he  goes  on  to  describe  as  a  sort  of  inexhaustible  anxiety  for 
perfect  compliance  with  the  minutest  positive  commands  which  may 


MEMOIR.  XXXIX 


be  made  the  condition  of  forgiveness  for  the  innumerable  lapses  of 
moral  obligation.  I  am  not  criticizing  the  paper,  or  I  should  point 
out  that  Bagehot  failed  in  it  to  draw  out  the  distinction  between 
the  primitive  moral  instinct  and  the  corrupt  superstition  into  which 
it  runs;  but  I  believed  that  he  recognized  the  weight  of  this  moral 
testimony  of  the  conscience  to  a  divine  Judge,  as  well  as  the 
transcendental  testimony  of  the  intellect  to  an  eternal  substance 
of  things,  to  the  end  of  his  life.  And  certainly,  in  the  reality  of 
human  free-will  as  the  condition  of  all  genuine  moral  life  he  firmly 
believed.  In  his  "Physics  and  Politics"  —  the  subtle  and  original 
essay  upon  which,  in  conjunction  with  the  essay  on  the  "English 
Constitution,"  Bagehot's  reputation  as  a  European  thinker  chiefly 
rests  —  he  repeatedly  guards  himself  (for  instance,  pages  432,  433) 
against  being  supposed  to  think  that  in  accepting  the  principle  of 
evolution,  he  has  accepted  anything  inconsistent  either  with  spirit- 
ual creation  or  with  the  free-will  of  man.  On  the  latter  point  he 
adds : — 

"No  doubt  the  modern  doctrine  of  the  'conservation  of  force,'  if 
applied  to  decision,  is  inconsistent  with  free-will :  if  you  hold  that  force 
is  'never  lost  or  gained,'  you  cannot  hold  that  there  is  a  real  gain, — a 
sort  of  new  creation  of  it  in  free  volition.  But  I  have  nothing  to  do  here 
with  the  universal  '  conservation  of  force ' :  the  conception  of  the  nervous 
organs  as  stores  of  will-made  power  does  not  raise  or  need  so  vast  a 
discussion." 

And  in  the  same  book  he  repeatedly  uses  the  expression  "Provi- 
dence," evidently  in  its  natural  meaning,  to  express  the  ultimate 
force  at  work  behind  the  march  of  "evolution."  Indeed,  in  conver- 
sation with  me  on  this  subject,  he  often  said  how  much  higher  a 
conception  of  the  creative  mind  the  new  Darwinian  ideas  seemed 
to  him  to  have  introduced,  as  compared  with  those  contained  in 
what  is  called  the  argument  from  contrivance  and  design.  On  the 
subject  of  personal  immortality,  too,  I  do  not  think  that  Bagehot 
ever  wavered.  He  often  spoke,  and  even  wrote,  of  "that  vague 
sense  of  eternal  continuity  which  is  always  about  the  mind,  and 
which  no  one  could  bear  to  lose,"  and  described  it  as  being  much 
more  important  to  us  than  it  even  appears  to  be,  important  as 
that  is;  for,  he  said,  "when  we  think  we  are  thinking  of  the  past, 
we  are  only  thinking  of  a  future  that  is  to  be  like  it."  But  with 
the  exception  of  these  cardinal  points,  I  could  hardly  say  how  much 
Bagehot's  mind  was  or  was  not  affected  by  the  great  speculative  con- 
troversies of  later  years.  Certainly  he  became  much  more  doubtful 
concerning  the  force  of  the  historical  evidence  of  Christianity  than 


THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


I  ever  was,  and  rejected,  I  think  entirely,  —  though  on  what  amount 
of  personal  study  he  had  founded  his  opinion  I  do  not  know,  —  the 
Apostolic  origin  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  Possibly  his  mind  may  have 
been  latterly  in  suspense  as  to  miracle  altogether,  though  I  am 
pretty  sure  that  he  had  not  come  to  a  negative  conclusion.  He 
belonged,  in  common  with  myself,  during  the  last  years  of  his  life, 
to  a  society  in  which  these  fundamental  questions  were  often  dis- 
cussed ;  but  he  seldom  spoke  in  it,  and  told  me  very  shortly  before 
his  death  that  he  shrank  from  such  discussions  on  religious  points, 
feeling  that  in  debates  of  this  kind  they  were  not  and  could  not 
be  treated  with  anything  like  thoroughness.  On  the  whole,  I 
think  the  cardinal  article  of  his  faith  would  be  adequately  repre- 
sented even  in  the  latest  period  of  his  life  by  the  following  pass- 
age in  his  essay  on  Bishop  Butler  :  — 

"In  every  step  of  religious  argument  we  require  the  assumption,  the 
belief—  the  faith,  if  the  word  is  better  —  in  an  absolutely  perfect  Being, 
in  and  by  whom  we  are,  who  is  omnipotent  as  well  as  most  holy,  who  '  moves 
on  the  face  '  of  the  whole  world  and  ruleth  '  all  things  by  the  word  of  his 
power.'  If  we  grant  this,  the  difficulty  of  the  opposition  between  what  is 
here  called  the  'natural'  and  the  'supernatural'  religion  is  removed;  and 
without  granting  it,  that  difficulty  is  perhaps  insuperable.  It  follows  from 
the  very  idea  and  definition  of  an  infinitely  perfect  Being,  that  he  is  with- 
out us  as  well  as  within  us  :  ruling  the  clouds  of  the  air  and  the  fishes 
of  the  sea  as  well  as  the  fears  and  thoughts  of  man  ;  smiling  through  the 
smile  of  nature  as  well  as  warning  with  the  pain  of  conscience  ;  '  sine 
qualitate  bonum,  sine  quantitate  magnum,  sine  indigentia  creatorem,  sine 
situ  praesidentem,  sine  habitu  omnia  continentem,  sine  loco  ubique  totum, 
sine  tempore  sempiternum,  sine  ulla  sui  mutatione  mutabilia  facientem  ; 
nihilque  patientem.'  If  we  assume  this,  life  is  simple;  without  this  all 
is  dark." 

Evidently,  then,  though  Bagehot  held  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
by  natural  selection  gave  a  higher  conception  of  the  Creator  than 
the  old  doctrine  of  mechanical  design,  he  never  took  any  material- 
istic view  of  evolution.  One  of  his  early  essays,  written  while  at  col- 
lege, on  some  of  the  many  points  of  the  Kantian  philosophy  which 
he  then  loved  to  discuss,  concluded  with  a  remarkable  sentence, 
which  would  probably  have  fairly  expressed  even  at  the  close  of 
his  life  his  profound  belief  in  God,  and  his  partial  sympathy 
with  the  agnostic  view  that  we  are  in  great  measure  incapable 
of  apprehending,  more  than  very  dimly,  his  mind  or  purposes  :  — 
"Gazing  after  the  infinite  essence,  we  are  like  men  watching  through 
the  drifting  clouds  for  a  glimpse  of  the  true  heavens  on  a  drear 
November  day  ;  layer  after  layer  passes  from  our  view,  but  still 
the  same  immovable  gray  rack  remains." 


MEMOIR.  Xli 


After  Bagehot  had  taken  his  Master's  degree,  and  while  he  was 
still  reading  law  in  London,  and  hesitating  between  the  bar  and 
the  family  bank,  there  came  as  principal  to  University  Hall  (which 
is  a  hall  of  residence  in  connection  with  University  College, 
London,  established  by  the  Presbyterians  and  Unitarians  after  the 
passing  of  the  Dissenters'  Chapel  Act),  the  man  who  had,  I  think,  a 
greater  intellectual  fascination  for  Bagehot  than  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries, —  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  Fellow  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford, 
and  author  of  various  poems  of  great  genius  more  or  less  familiar 
to  the  public  ;  though  Clough  is  perhaps  better  known  as  the  sub- 
ject of  the  exquisite  poem  written  on  his  death  in  1861  by  his 
friend  Matthew  Arnold  —  the  poem  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of 
"Thyrsis"  —  than  by  even  the  most  popular  of  his  own.  Bagehot 
had  subscribed  for  the  erection  of  University  Hall,  and  took  an 
active  part  at  one  time  on  its  council.  Thus  he  saw  a  good  deal 
of  Clough,  and  did  what  he  could  to  mediate  between  that  enigma 
to  Presbyterian  parents  —  a  college  head  who  held  himself  serenely 
neutral  on  almost  all  moral  and  educational  subjects  interesting  to 
parents  and  pupils,  except  the  observance  of  disciplinary  rules  — 
and  the  managing  body,  who  bewildered  him  and  were  by  him 
bewildered.  I  don't  think  either  Bagehot  or  Clough's  other  friends 
were  very  successful  in  their  mediation  :  but  he  at  least  gained 
in  Clough  a  cordial  friend,  and  a  theme  of  profound  intellectual 
and  moral  interest  to  himself  which  lasted  him  his  life,  and  never 
failed  to  draw  him  into  animated  discussion  long  after  Clough's 
own  premature  death  ;  and  I  think  I  can  trace  the  effect  which 
some  of  Clough's  writings  had  on  Bagehot's  mind  to  the  very  end 
of  his  career.  There  were  some  points  of  likeness  between  Bagehot 
and  Clough,  but  many  more  of  difference.  Both  had  the  capacity 
for  boyish  spirits  in  them,  and  the  florid  color  which  usually  ac- 
companies a  good  deal  of  animal  vigor  ;  both  were  reserved  men, 
with  a  great  dislike  of  anything  like  the  appearance  of  false  senti- 
ment, and  both  were  passionate  admirers  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  : 
but  Clough  was  slightly  lymphatic,  with  a  great  tendency  to  un- 
expressed and  unacknowledged  discouragement,  and  to  the  paralysis 
of  silent  embarrassment  when  suffering  from  such  feelings  ;  while 
Bagehot  was  keen,  and  very  quickly  evacuated  embarrassing  positions 
and  never  returned  to  them.  When  however,  Clough  was  happy 
and  at  ease,  there  was  a  calm  and  silent  radiance  in  his  face,  and 
his  head  was  set  with  a  kind  of  stateliness  on  his  shoulders,  that 
gave  him  almost  an  Olympian  air;  but  this  would  sometimes  van- 
ish in  a  moment  into  an  embarrassed  taciturnity  that  was  quite 
uncouth.  One  of  his  friends  declares  that  the  man  who  was  said 


xlii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

to  be  "a  cross  between  a  schoolboy  and  a  bishop"  must  have  been 
like  Clough.  There  was  in  Clough,  too,  a  large  Chaucerian 
simplicity  and  a  flavor  of  homeliness  ;  so  that  now  and  then,  when 
the  light  shone  into  his  eyes,  there  was  something,  in  spite  of  the 
air  of  fine  scholarship  and  culture,  which  reminded  one  of  the  best 
likenesses  of  Burns.  It  was  of  Clough,  I  believe,  that  Emerson  was 
thinking  (though,  knowing  Clough  intimately  as  he  did,  he  was 
of  course  speaking  mainly  in  joke)  when  he  described  the  Oxford 
of  that  day  thus:  "'Ah,'  says  my  languid  Oxford  gentleman, 
'nothing  new  or  true  —  and  no  matter.'"*  No  saying  could  mis- 
represent Clough's  really  buoyant  and  simple  character  more  com- 
pletely than  that  ;  but  doubtless  many  of  his  sayings  and  writings, 
treating  as  they  did  most  of  the  greater  problems  of  life  as  insolu- 
ble, and  enjoining  a  self-possessed  composure  under  the  discovery  of 
their  insolubility,  conveyed  an  impression  very  much  like  this  to 
men  who  came  only  occasionally  in  contact  with  him.  Bagehot,  in  his 
article  on  Crabb  Robinson,  says  that  the  latter,  who  in  those  days 
seldom  remembered  names,  always  described  Clough  as  "that  ad- 
mirable and  accomplished  man  —  you  know  whom  I  mean  —  the  one 
who  never  says  anything."  And  certainly  Clough  was  often  taciturn 
to  the  last  degree,  or  if  he  opened  his  lips,  delighted  to  open  them 
only  to  scatter  confusion  by  discouraging,  in  words  at  least,  all  that 
that  was  then  called  "earnestness";  as  for  example  by  asking,  "  Was 
it  ordained  that  twice  two  should  make  four,  simply  for  the  intent 
that  boys  and  girls  should  be  cut  to  the  heart  that  they  do  not 
make  five  ?  Be  content  ;  when  the  veil  is  raised,  perhaps  they 
will  make  five  !  Who  knows  ? "  t 

Clough's  chief  fascination  for  Bagehot  was,  I  think,  that  he  had 
as  a  poet  in  some  measure  rediscovered,  at  all  events  realized  as 
few  ever  realized  before,  the  enormous  difficulty  of  finding  truth, — 
a  difficulty  which  he  somewhat  paradoxically  held  to  be  enhanced 
rather  than  diminished  by  the  intensity  of  the  truest  modern  passion 
for  it.  The  stronger  the  desire,  he  teaches,  the  greater  is  the  dan- 
ger of  illegitimately  satisfying  that  desire  by  persuading  ourselves 
that  what  we  wish  to  believe  is  true,  and  the  greater  the  danger  of 
ignoring  the  actual  confusions  of  human  things  :  — 

"  Rules  baffle  instincts,  instincts  rules, 
Wise  men  are  bad,  and  good  are  fools, 
Facts  evil,  wishes  vain  appear, 
We  cannot  go,  why  are  we  here? 

"Oh,  may  we,  for  assurance'  sake, 
Some  arbitrary  judgment  take, 


*  Essay  on  Montaigne,  in  "Representative  Men." 

t" Clough's  Poems  and  Prose  Remains,"  Vol.  i.,  page  175. 


MEMOIR.  xliii 


And  willfully  pronounce  it  clear, 
For  this  or  that  'tis,  we  are  here  ? 

"Or  is  it  right,  and  will  it  do, 
To  pace  the  sad  confusion  through, 
And  say,  It  does  not  yet  appear 
What  we  shall  be  —  what  we  are  here?" 

This  warning  to  withhold  judgment,  and  not  cheat  ourselves 
into  beliefs  which  our  own  imperious  desire  to  believe  had  alone 
engendered,  is  given  with  every  variety  of  tone  and  modulation^ 
and  couched  in  all  sorts  of  different  forms  of  fancy  and  apologue, 
throughout  dough's  poems.  He  insists  on  "the  ruinous  force  of 
the  will"  to  persuade  us  of  illusions  which  please  us;  of  the  tend- 
ency of  practical  life  to  give  us  beliefs  which  suit  that  practical  life, 
but  are  none  the  truer  for  that;  and  is  never  weary  of  warning 
us  that  a  firm  belief  in  a  falsity  can  be  easily  generated :  — 

"Action  will  furnish  belief,  —  but  will  that  belief  be  the  true  one? 
This  is  the  point,  you  know.    However,  it  doesn't  much  matter. 
What  one  wants,  I  suppose,  is  to  predetermine  the  action, 
So  as  to  make  it  entail,  not  a  chance  belief  but  the  true  one." 

This  practical  preaching,  which  Clough  urges  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  met  an  answering  chord  in  Bagehot's  mind,  not  so  much  in 
relation  to  religious  belief  as  in  relation  to  the  over-haste  and  over- 
eagerness  of  human  conduct;  and  I  can  trace  the  effect  of  it 
in  all  his  writings,  political  and  otherwise,  to  the  end  of  his  life. 
Indeed,  it  affected  him  much  more  in  later  days  than  in  the  years 
immediately  following  his  first  friendship  with  Clough.  With  all  his 
boyish  dash,  there  was  something  in  Bagehot  even  in  youth  which 
dreaded  precipitancy;  and  not  only  precipitancy  itself,  but  those 
moral  situations  tending  to  precipitancy  which  men  who  have  no 
minds  of  their  own  to  make  up,  so  often  court.  In  later  life  he 
pleased  himself  by  insisting  that  on  Darwin's  principle,  civilized 
men,  with  all  the  complex  problems  of  modern  life  to  puzzle  them, 
suspend  their  judgment  so  little  and  are  so  eager  for  action  only 
because  they  have  inherited  from  the  earlier,  simpler,  and  more 
violent  ages  an  excessive  predisposition  to  action,  unsuited  to  our 
epoch  and  dangerous  to  our  future  development.  But  it  was 
Clough,  I  think,  who  first  stirred  in  Bagehot's  mind  this  great 
dread  of  "the  ruinous  force  of  the  will";  a  phrase  he  was  never 
weary  of  quoting,  and  which  might  almost  be  taken  as  the  motto 
of  his  "Physics  and  Politics,"  the  great  conclusion  of  which  is  that 
in  the  "age  of  discussion,"  grand  policies  and  high-handed  diplo- 
macy and  sensational  legislation  of  all  kinds  will  become  rarer  and 


Xliv  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

raror,  because  discussion  will  point  out  all  the  difficulties  of  such 
policies  in  relation  to  a  state  of  existence  so  complex  as  our  own, 
and  will  in  this  way  tend  to  repress  the  excess  of  practical  energy 
handed  down  to  us  by  ancestors  to  whom  life  was  a  sharper,  simpler, 
and  more  perilous  affair. 

But  the  time  for  Bagehot's  full  adoption  of  the  suspensive  princi- 
ple in  public  affairs  was  not  yet.  In  1851  he  went  to  Paris,  shortly 
before  the  Coup  <T&tat.  And  while  all  England  was  assailing  Louis 
Napoleon  (justly  enough,  as  I  think)  for  his  perfidy  and  his  im- 
patience of  the  self-willed  Assembly  he  could  not  control,  Bagehot 
was  preparing  a  deliberate  and  very  masterly  defence  of  that  bloody 
and  high-handed  act.  Even  Bagehot  would,  I  think,  if  pressed 
judiciously  in  later  life,  have  admitted  —  though  I  can't  say  he  ever 
did  —  that  the  Coup  cPEtat  was  one  of  the  best  illustrations  of 
"the  ruinous  force  of  the  will"  in  engendering,  or  at  least  crystalliz- 
ing, a  false  intellectual  conclusion  as  to  the  political  possibilities  of 
the  future,  which  recent  history  could  produce.  Certainly  he  always 
spoke  somewhat  apologetically  of  these  early  letters,  though  I  never 
heard  him  expressly  retract  their  doctrine.  In  1851  a  knot  of 
young  Unitarians  (of  whom  I  was  then  one) — headed  by  the  late 
Mr.  J.  Langton  Sanford,  afterwards  the  historian  of  the  Great 
Rebellion,  who  survived  Bagehot  barely  four  months — had  engaged 
to  help  for  a  time  in  conducting  the  Inquirer,  which  then  was, 
and  still  is,  the  chief  literary  and  theological  organ  of  the  Unitarian 
body.  Our  regime  was,  I  imagine,  a  time  of  great  desolation  for 
the  very  tolerant  and  thoughtful  constituency  for  whom  wye  wrote; 
and  many  of  them,  I  am  confident,  yearned  and  were  fully  justified 
in  yearning  for  those  better  days  when  this  tyranny  of  ours  should 
be  overpast.  Sanford  and  Osier  did  a  good  deal  to  throw  cold 
water  on  the  rather  optimist  and  philanthropic  politics  of  the  most 
sanguine,  because  the  most  benevolent  and  open-hearted,  of  Dissent- 
ers; Roscoe  criticized  their  literary  work  from  the  point  of  view 
of  a  devotee  of  the  Elizabethan  poets;  and  I  attempted  to  prove 
to  them  in  distinct  heads,  first,  that  their  laity  ought  to  have  the 
protection  afforded  by  a  liturgy  against  the  arbitrary  prayers  of 
their  ministers,  and  next,  that  at  least  the  great  majority  of  their 
sermons  ought  to  be  suppressed,  and  the  habit  of  delivering  them 
discontinued  almost  altogether.  Only  a  denomination  of  "just  men" 
trained  in  tolerance  for  generations,  and  in  that  respect  at  least  made 
all  but  "perfect,"  would  have  endured  it  at  all;  but  I  doubt  if 
any  of  us  caused  the  Unitarian  body  so  much  grief  as  Bagehot,  who 
never  was  a  Unitarian,  but  who  contributed  a  series  of  brilliant  letters 
on  the  Coup  tffctat,  in  which  he  trod  just  as  heavily  on  the  toes 


MEMOIR.  Xlv 


of  his  colleagues  as  he  did  on  those  of  the  public  by  whom  the 
Inquirer  was  taken.  In  those  letters  he  not  only,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  eulogized  the  Catholic  Church,  but  he  supported  the  Prince- 
President's  military  violence,  attacked  the  freedom  of  the  press  in 
France,  maintained  that  the  country  was  wholly  unfit  for  true  par- 
liamentary government,  and  —  worst  of  all,  perhaps  —  insinuated  a 
panegyric  on  Louis  Napoleon  himself,  asserting  that  he  had  been 
far  better  prepared  for  the  duties  of  a  statesman  by  gambling  on 
the  turf  than  he  would  have  been  by  poring  over  the  historical  and 
political  dissertations  of  the  wise  and  the  good.  This  was  Bagehot's 
day  of  cynicism.  The  seven  letters  which  he  wrote  on  the  Coup 
(TEtat  were  certainly  very  exasperating;  and  yet  they  were  not 
caricatures  of  his  real  thought,  for  his  private  letters  at  the  time 
were  more  cynical  still.  Crabb  Robinson,  in  speaking  of  him,  used 
ever  afterwards  to  describe  him  to  me  as  "that  friend  of  yours  — 
you  know  whom  I  mean,  you  rascal !  —  who  wrote  those  abomina- 
ble, those  most  disgraceful  letters  on  the  Coup  d\Etat  —  I  did  not 
forgive  him  for  years  after."  Nor  do  I  wonder  even  now  that  a 
sincere  friend  of  constitutional  freedom  and  intellectual  liberty,  like 
Crabb  Robinson,  found  them  difficult  to  forgive.  They  were  light 
and  airy,  and  even  flippant,  on  a  very  grave  subject.  They  made 
nothing  of  the  Prince's  perjury,  and  they  took  impertinent  liberties 
with  all  the  dearest  prepossessions  of  the  readers  of  the  Inquirer, 
and  assumed  their  sympathy  just  where  Bagehot  knew  that  they 
would  be  most  revolted  by  his  opinions.  Nevertheless,  they  had  a 
vast  deal  of  truth  in  them,  and  no  end  of  ability;  and  I  hope  that 
there  will  be  many  to  read  them  with  interest  now  that  they  are 
here  republished.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  the  raw  material  of  his- 
tory in  them,  and  certainly  I  doubt  if  Bagehot  ever  again  hit  the 
satiric  vein  of  argument  so  well.  Here  is  a  passage  that  will  bear 
taking  out  of  its  context,  and  therefore  not  so  full  of  the  shrewd 
malice  of  these  letters  as  many  others,  but  which  will  illustrate 
their  ability.  It  is  one  in  which  Bagehot  maintained  for  the  first 
time  the  view  (which  I  believe  he  subsequently  almost  persuaded 
English  politicians  to  accept,  though  in  1852  it  was  a  mere  flippant 
novelty,  a  paradox  and  a  heresy)  that  free  institutions  are  apt  to 
succeed  with  a  stupid  people,  and  to  founder  with  a  ready-witted 
and  vivacious  one.  After  broaching  this,  he  goes  on : 

"I  see  you  are  surprised;  you  are  going  to  say  to  me,  as  Socrates  did 
to  Polus,  •  My  young  friend,  of  course  you  are  right ;  but  will  you  explain 
what  you  mean?  as  yet  you  are  not  intelligible.'  I  will  do  so  as  well  as  I 
can,  and  endeavor  to  make  good  what  I  say,  not  by  an  a  priori  demonstra- 
tion of  my  own,  but  from  the  details  of  the  present  and  the  facts  of  history. 


Xlvi  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Not  to  begin  by  wounding  any  present  susceptibilities,  let  me  take  the 
Roman  character ;  for  with  one  great  exception  —  I  need  not  say  to  whom 
I  allude  —  they  are  the  great  political  people  of  history.  Now,  is  not  a 
certain  dullness  their  most  visible  characteristic  ?  What  is  the  history  of 
their  speculative  mind  ?  a  blank ;  what  their  literature  ?  a  copy.  They 
have  left  not  a  single  discovery  in  any  abstract  science,  not  a  single  perfect 
or  well-formed  work  of  high  imagination.  The  Greeks,  the  perfection  of 
human  and  accomplished  genius,  bequeathed  to  mankind  the  ideal  forms 
of  self-idolizing  art,  the  Romans  imitated  and  admired  ;  the  Greeks  explained 
the  laws  of  nature,  the  Romans  wondered  and  despised  ;  the  Greeks  in- 
vented a  system  of  numerals  second  only  to  that  now  in  use,  the  Romans 
counted  to  the  end  of  their  days  with  the  clumsy  apparatus  which  we  still 
call  by  their  name ;  the  Greeks  made  a  capital  and  scientific  calendar, 
the  Romans  began  their  month  when  the  Pontifex  Maximus  happened  to 
spy  out  the  new  moon.  ^Throughout  Latin  literature,  this  is  the  perpetual 
puzzle  :  — Why  are  we  free  and  they  slaves,  we  praetors  and  they  barbers  ? 
why  do  the  stupid  people  always  win  and  the  clever  people  always  lose  ? 
I  need  not  say  that  in  real  sound  stupidity,  the  English  people  are  unrivaled  : 
you'll  hear  more  wit  and  better  wit  in  an  Irish  street  row  than  would 
keep  Westminster  Hall  in  humor  for  five  weeks.  .  .  .  These  valuable  truths 
are  no  discoveries  of  mine  :  they  are  familiar  enough  to  people  whose  busi- 
ness it  is  to  know  them.  Hear  what  a  douce  and  aged  attorney  says  of  your 
peculiarly  promising  barrister :  —  "  Sharp  ?  Oh  yes,  yes  !  he's  too  sharp  by 
half.  He  is  not  safe,  not  a  minute,  isn't  that  young  man."  —  "What  style, 
sir,"  asked  of  an  East  India  Director  some  youthful  aspirant  for  literary 
renown,  "is  most  to  be  preferred  in  the  composition  of  official  dispatches?" 
"My  good  fellow,"  responded  the  ruler  of  Hindostan,  "the  style  as  we  like 
is  the  Humdrum.'  " 

The  permanent  value  of  these  papers  is  due  to  the  freshness 
of  their  impressions  of  the  French,  capital,  and  their  true  criticisms 
of  Parisian  journalism  and  society.  Their  perverseness  consists  in 
this,  —  that  Bagehot  steadily  ignored  in  them  the  distinction  between 
the  duty  of  resisting  anarchy,  and  the  assumption  of  the  Prince- 
President  that  this  could  only  be  done  by  establishing  his  own 
dynasty  and  deferring  sine  die  that  great  constitutional  experiment 
which  is  now  once  more,  no  thanks  to  him  or  his  government,  on 
its  trial  ;  an  experiment  which,  for  anything  we  see,  had  at  least 
as  good  a  chance  then  as  now,  and  under  a  firm  and  popular  chief 
of  the  executive  like  Prince  Louis,  would  probably  have  had  a  bet- 
ter chance  then  than  it  has  now  under  MacMahon.  I  need  hardly 
say  that  in  later  life  Bagehot  was  by  no  means  blind  to  the  political 
shortcomings  of  Louis  Napoleon's  regime,  as  the  article  republished 
from  the  Economist,  in  the  second  appendix  to  this  volume,*  suffi- 
ciently proves.  Moreover,  he  rejoiced  heartily  in  the  moderation 


*"  A  Later  Judgment,"  close  of  Vol.  it.  of  this  edition. 


MEMOIR.  Xlvii 

of  the  republican  statesmen  during  the  severe  trials  of  the  months 
which  just  preceded  his  own  death,  in  1877,  and  expressed  his  sin- 
cere belief — confirmed  by  the  history  of  the  last  year  and  a  half  — 
that  the  existing  Republic  had  every  prospect  of  life  and  growth. 

During  that  residence  in  Paris,  Bagehot  —  though,  as  I  have 
said,  in  a  somewhat  cynical  frame  of  mind  —  was  full  of  life  and 
courage,  and  was  beginning  to  feel  his  own  genius  ;  which  perhaps 
accounts  for  the  air  of  recklessness  so  foreign  to  him,  which  he 
never  adopted  either  before  or  since.  During  the  riots  he  was  a 
good  deal  in  the  streets,  and  from  a  mere  love  of  art  helped  the 
Parisians  to  construct  some  of  their  barricades,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  his  own  sympathy  was  with  those  who  shot  down  the 
barricades,  not  with  those  who  manned  them.  He  climbed  over 
the  rails  of  the  Palais  Royal  on  the  morning  of  Dec.  2  to  break- 
fast, and  used  to  say  that  he  was  the  only  person  who  did  break- 
fast there  on  that  day.  Victor  Hugo  is  certainly  wrong  in  asserting 
that  no  one  expected  Louis  Napoleon  to  use  force,  and  that  the 
streets  were  as  full  as  usual  when  the  people  were  shot  down  ;  for 
the  gates  of  the  Palais  Royal  were  shut  quite  early  in  the  day. 
Bagehot  was  very  much  struck  by  the  ferocious  look  of  the  Mon- 
tagnards. 

"Of  late,"  he  wrote  to  me,  "I  have  been  devoting  my  entire  attention 
to  the  science  of  barricades,  which  I  found  amusing.  They  have  systema- 
tized it  in  a  way  which  is  pleasing  to  the  cultivated  intellect.  We  had 
only  one  good  day's  fighting,  and  I  naturally  kept  out  of  cannon-shot.  But 
I  took  a  quiet  walk  over  the  barricades  in  the  morning,  and  superintended 
the  construction  of  three  with  as  much  keenness  as  if  I  had  been  clerk  of 
the  works.  You've  seen  lots,  of  course,  at  Berlin ;  but  I  should  not  think 
those  Germans  were  up  to  a  real  Montagnard,  who  is  the  most  horrible 
being  to  the  eye  I  ever  saw,  —  sallow,  sincere,  sour  fanaticism,  with  grizzled 
mustaches,  and  a  strong  wish  to  shoot  you  rather  than  not.  The  Mon- 
tagnards  are  a  scarce  commodity,  the  real  race,  —  only  three  or  four,  if  so 
many,  to  a  barricade.  If  you  want  a  Satan  any  odd  time,  they'll  do ;  only 
I  hope  that  he  dou't  believe  in  human  brotherhood.  It  is  not  possible  to 
respect  any  one  who  does,  and  I  should  be  loth  to  confound  the  notion  of 
our  friend's  solitary  grandeur  by  supposing  him  to  fraternize,"  etc.  "I 
think  M.  Buonaparte  is  entitled  to  great  praise.  He  has  very  good  heels 
to  his  boots,  and  the  French  just  want  treading  down,  and  nothing  else, — 
calm,  cruel,  business-like  oppression,  to  take  the  dogmatic  conceit  out  of 
their  heads.  The  spirit  of  generalization  which,  John  Mill  tells  us,  honor- 
ably distinguishes  the  French  mind,  has  come  to  this,  that  every  Parisian 
wants  his  head  tapped  in  order  to  get  the  formulae  and  nonsense  out  of  it. 
And  it  would  pay  to  perform  the  operation,  for  they  are  very  clever  on 
what  is  within  the  limit  of  their  experience,  and  all  that  can  be  'expanded' 
in  terms  of  it ;  but  beyond,  it  is  all  generalization  and  folly.  ...  So  I 
am  for  any  carnivorous  government." 


Xlviii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

And  again,  in  the  same  letter:  — 

"  Till  tbe  Revolution  came  I  had  no  end  of  trouble  to  find  conversation, 
but  now  they'll  talk  against  everybody,  and  against  the  President  like  mad ; 
and  they  talk  immensely  well,  and  the  language  is  like  a  razor,  —  capital  if 
you  are  skillful,  but  sure  to  cut  you  if  you  aren't.  A  fellow  can  talk  Ger- 
man in  crude  forms,  and  I  don't  see  it  sounds  any  worse ;  but  this  stuff  is 
horrid  unless  you  get  it  quite  right.  A  French  lady  made  a  striking  remark 
to  me  :  — '  C'est  une  revolution  qul  a  sauve  la  France.  Tons  mes  amin  sont  mis  en 
prison.'  *  She  was  immensely  delighted  that  such  a  pleasing  way  of  saving 
her  country  had  been  found." 

Of  course  the  style  of  these  familiar  private  letters  conveys  a 
gross  caricature  not  only  of  Bagehot's  maturer  mind,  but  even  of 
the  judgment  of  the  published  letters;  and  I  quote  them  only  to 
show  that  at  the  time  when  he  composed  these  letters  on  the  Coup 
d'Etat,  Bagehot's  mood  was  that  transient  mood  of  reckless  youth- 
ful cynicism  through  which  so  many  men  of  genius  pass.  I  do  not 
think  he  had  at  any  time  any  keen  sympathy  with  the  multitude, — 
i.  e.,  w7ith  masses  of  unknown  men.  And  that  he  ever  felt  what 
has  since  then  been  termed  "the  enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  the  sym- 
pathy with  "the  toiling  millions  of  men  sunk  in  labor  and  pain," 
he  himself  would  strenuously  have  denied.  Such  sympathy,  even 
when  men  really  desire  to  feel  it,  is  indeed  very  much  oftener  coveted 
than  actually  felt  by  men  as  a  living  motive;  and  I  am  not  quite 
sure  that  Bagehot  would  have  even  wished  to  feel  it.  Nevertheless, 
he  had  not  the  faintest  trace  of  real  hardness  about  him  towards 
people  whom  he  knew  and  understood.  He  could  not  bear  to  give 
pain;  and  when  in  rare  cases,  by  youthful  inadvertence,  he  gave  it 
needlessly,  I  have  seen  how  much  and  what  lasting  vexation  it 
caused  him.  Indeed,  he  was  capable  of  great  sacrifices  to  spare 
his  friends  but  a  little  suffering. 

It  was,  I  think,  during  his  stay  in  Paris  that  Bagehot  finally 
decided  to  give  up  the  notion  of  practicing  at  the  bar,  and  to  join 
his  father  in  the  Somersetshire  Bank  and  in  his  other  business  as 
a  merchant  and  ship-owner.  This  involved  frequent  visits  to  Lon- 
don and  Liverpool  ;  and  Bagehot  soon  began  to  take  a  genuine 
interest  in  the  larger  issues  of  commerce,  and  maintained  to  the 
end  that  "business  is  much  more  amusing  than  pleasure."  Never- 
theless, he  could  not  live  without  the  intellectual  life  of  London, 
and  never  stayed  more  than  six  weeks  at  a  time  in  the  country 
without  finding  some  excuse  for  going  to  town;  and  long  before 
his  death  he  made  his  home  there.  Hunting  was  the  only  sport 
he  really  cared  for.  He  was  a  dashing  rider,  and  a  fresh  wind  was 


* "  It   is   a   revolution   which  has   saved   France.    All   my  friends   have 
been  sent  to  prison." 


MEMOIR.  Xlix 


felt  blowing  through  his  earlier  literary  efforts,  as  though  he  had 
been  thinking  in  the  saddle  ;  an  effect  wanting  in  his  later  essays, 
where  you  see  chiefly  the  calm  analysis  of  a  lucid  observer.  But 
most  of  the  ordinary  amusements  of  young  people  he  detested. 
He  used  to  say  that  he  wished  he  could  think  balls  wicked,  being  so 
stupid  as  they  were,  and  all  "the  little  blue  and  pink  girls,  so  like 
each  other,"  —  a  sentiment  partly  due,  perhaps,  to  his  extreme 
shortness  of  sight. 

Though  Bagehot  never  doubted  the  wisdom  of  his  own  decis- 
ion to  give  up  the  law  for  the  life  of  commerce,  he  thoroughly 
enjoyed  his  legal  studies  in  his  friend  the  late  Mr.  Justice  Quain's 
chambers,  and  in  those  of  the  present  Vice-Chancellor  Sir  Charles 
Hall  ;  and  he  learnt  there  a  good  deal  that  was  of  great  use  to 
him  in  later  life.  Moreover,  in  spite  of  his  large  capacity  for  finance 
and  commerce,  there  were  small  difficulties  in  Bagehot's  way  as 
a  banker  and  merchant  which  he  felt  somewhat  keenly.  He  was 
always  absent-minded  about  minutice.  For  instance,  to  the  last,  he 
could  not  correct  a  proof  well,  and  was  sure  to  leave  a  number 
of  small  inaccuracies,  harshnesses,  and  slipshodnesses  in  style  un- 
corrected.  He  declared  at  one  time  that  he  was  wholly  unable 
to  "add  up,"  and  in  his  mathematical  exercises  in  college  he  had 
habitually  been  inaccurate  in  trifles.  I  remember  Professor  Maiden, 
on  returning  one  of  his  Greek  exercises,  saying  to  him,  with  that 
curiously  precise  and  emphatic  articulation  which  made  every  remark 
of  his  go  so  much  farther  than  that  of  our  other  lecturers,  "Mr. 
Bagehot,  you  wage  an  internecine  war  with  your  aspirates,"  —  not 
meaning,  of  course,  that  he  ever  left  them  out  in  pronunciation,  but 
that  he  neglected  to  put  them  in  in  his  written  Greek.  And  to 
the  last,  even  in  his  printed  Greek  quotations,  the  slips  of  this 
kind  were  always  numerous.  This  habitual  difficulty  —  due,  I  believe, 
to  a  preoccupied  imagination  —  in  attending  to  small  details  made  a 
banker's  duties  seem  irksome  and  formidable  to  him  at  first  ;  and 
even  to  the  last,  in  his  most  effective  financial  papers,  he  would 
generally  get  some  one  else  to  look  after  the  precise  figures  for 
him.  But  in  spite  of  all  this,  and  in  spite  of  a  real  attraction  for 
the  study  of  law,  he  was  sure  that  his  head  would  not  stand  the 
hot  courts,  and  [the]  heavy  wigs  which  make  the  hot  courts  hot- 
ter, or  the  night-work  of  a  thriving  barrister  in  case  of  success  ; 
and  he  was  certainly  quite  right.  Indeed,  had  he  chosen  the  bar, 
he  would  have  had  no  leisure  for  those  two  or  three  remarkable 
books  which  have  made  his  reputation,  —  books  which  have  been 
already  translated  into  all  the  literary  and  some  of  the  unliterary 
languages  of  Europe,  and  two  of  which  are,  I  believe,  used  as 
VOL.  I.— D 


1  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

text-books  .in  some  of  the  American  colleges.*  Moreover,  in  all 
probability,  his  life  would  have  been  much  shorter  into  the  bargain. 
Soon  after  his  return  from  Paris  he  devoted  himself  in  earnest  to 
banking  and  commerce,  and  also  began  that  series  of  articles,  first 
for  the  Prospective  and  then  for  the  National  Review  (which  latter 
periodical  he  edited  in  conjunction  with  me  for  several  years),  the 
most  striking  of  which  he  republished  in  1858,  under  the  awkward 
and  almost  forbidding  title  of  ' '  Estimates  of  some  Englishmen 
and  Scotchmen,"  —  a  book  which  never  attracted  the  attention  it 
deserved,  and  which  has  been  long  out  of  print.  In  republishing 
most  of  these  essays  as  I  am  now  doing,  —  and  a  later  volume  may, 
I  hope,  contain  those  essays  on  statesmen  and  politicians  which  are 
for  the  present  omitted  from  these,  t  —  it  is  perhaps  only  fair  to 
say  that  Bagehot  in  later  life  used  to  speak  ill  —  much  too  ill  — 
of  his  own  early  style.  He  used  to  declare  that  his  early  style 
affected  him  like  "the  jogging  of  a  cart  without  springs  over  a 
very  rough  road,"  and  no  doubt  in  his  earliest  essays  something 
abrupt  and  spasmodic  may  easily  be  detected  ;  still,  this  was  all 
so  inextricably  mingled  with  flashes  of  insight  and  humor  which 
could  ill  be  spared,  that  I  always  protested  against  any  notion  of 
so  revising  the  essays  as  to  pare  down  their  excrescences. 

I  have  never  understood  the  comparative  failure  of  this  vol- 
ume of  Bagehot's  early  essays  ;  and  a  comparative  failure  it  was, 
though  I  do  not  deny  that  even  at  the  time,  it  attracted  much 
attention  among  the  most  accomplished  writers  of  the  day,  and 
that  I  have  been  urged  to  republish  it,  as  I  am  now  doing,  by 
many  of  the  ablest  men  of  my  acquaintance.  Obviously,  as  I  have 
admitted,  there  are  many  faults  of  workmanship  in  it:  now  and 
then  the  banter  is  forced  ;  often  enough  the  style  is  embarrassed; 
occasionally,  perhaps,  the  criticism  misses  its  mark,  or  is  over-refined : 
but  taken  as  a  whole,  I  hardly  know  any  book  that  is  sxich  good 
reading,  —  that  has  so  much  lucid  vision  in  it,  so  much  shrewd 
and  curious  knowledge  of  the  world,  so  sober  a  judgment  and  so 
dashing  a  humor  combined.  Take  this,  for  instance,  out  of  the 
paper  on  "The  First  Edinburgh  Reviewers,"  concerning  the  judg- 
ment passed  by  Lord  Jeffrey  on  the  poetry  of  Bagehot's  favorite 
poet,  Wordsworth  :  — 

"  The  world  has  given  judgment.  Both  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  Lord  Jeffrey 
have  received  their  rewards.  The  one  has  his  own  generation,  the  laughter 
of  men,  the  applause  of  drawing-rooms,  the  concurrence  of  the  crowd;  the 


•Since  the  first  edition  of  this  work  was  published,  the  Oxford  Board 
of  Studies  have  made  a  text-book  of  Mr.  Bagehot's  "English  Constitution" 
for  that  university,  and  that  of  Cambridge  of  his  "Economic  Studies."  — 
R.  H.  H.  t  "  Biographical  Studies,"  Vol.  iii.  of  this  edition. 


MEMOIR.  H 


other  a  succeeding  age,  the  fond  enthusiasm  of  secret  students,  the  lonely 
rapture  of  lonely  minds.  And  each  has  received  according  to  his  kind.  If 
all  cultivated  men  speak  differently  because  of  the  existence  of  Wordsworth 
and  Coleridge ;  if  not  a  thoughtful  English  book  has  appeared  for  years 
without  some  trace,  for  good  or  for  evil,  of  their  influence  ;  if  sermon  writers 
subsist  upon  their  thoughts;  if  'sacred'  poets  thrive  by  translating  their 
weaker  portions  into  the  speech  of  women  ;  if,  when  all  this  is  over,  some 
sufficient  part  of  their  writing  will  ever  be  fitting  food  for  wild  musing  and 
solitary  meditation,  —  surely  this  is  because  they  possessed  the  inner  nature, 
an  'intense  and  glowing  mind,'  'the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine.'  But  if 
perchance,  in  their  weaker  moments  the  great  authors  of  the  '  Lyrical  Ballads ' 
did  ever  imagine  that  the  world  was  to  pause  because  of  their  verses,  that 
'  Peter  Bell '  would  be  popular  in  drawing-rooms,  that  '  Christabel '  would 
be  perused  in  the  City,  that  people  of  fashion  would  make  a  handbook 
of  the  'Excursion,'  it  was  well  for  them  to  be  told  at  once  that  it  was  not 
eo.  Nature  ingeniously  prepared  a  shrill  artificial  voice,  which  spoke  in 
season  and  out  of  season,  enough  and  more  than  enough,  what  will  ever  be 
the  idea  of  the  cities  of  the  plain  concerning  those  who  live  alone  among 
the  mountains ;  of  the  frivolous  concerning  the  grave ;  of  the  gregarious 
concerning  the  recluse  ;  of  those  who  laugh  concerning  those  who  laugh 
not ;  of  the  common  concerning  the  uncommon  ;  of  those  who  lend  on 
usury  concerning  those  who  lend  not ;  the  notions  of  the  world,  of  those 
whom  it  will  not  reckon  among  the  righteous.  It  said,  'This  won't  do.' 
And  so  in  all  times  will  the  lovers  of  polished  Liberalism  speak  concern- 
ing the  intense  and  lonely  prophet." 

I  choose  that  passage  because  it  illustrates  so  perfectly  Bagehot's 
double  vein,  —  his  sympathy  with  the  works  of  high  imagination, 
and  his  clear  insight  into  that  busy  life  which  does  not  and  cannot 
take  note  of  works  of  high  imagination,  and  which  would  not  do 
the  work  it  does  if  it  could.  And  this  is  the  characteristic  of  all 
the  essays.  How  admirably,  for  instance,  in  his  essay  on  Shake- 
speare, does  he  draw  out  the  individuality  of  a  poet  who  is  gen- 
erally supposed  to  be  so  completely  hidden  in  his  plays  ;  and  with 
how  keen  a  satisfaction  does  he  discern  and  display  the  prosperous 
and  practical  man  in  Shakespeare, — the  qualities  which  made  him  a 
man  of  substance  and  a  Conservative  politician,  as  well  as  the  qual- 
ities which  made  him  a  great  dramatist  and  a  great  dreamer.  No 
doubt  Bagehot  had  a  strong  personal  sympathy  with  the  double 
life.  Somersetshire  probably  never  believed  that  the  imaginative 
student,  the  omnivorous  reader,  could  prosper  as  a  banker  and  a 
man  of  business  ;  and  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  him  to  show  that 
he  understood  the  world  far  better  than  the  world  had  ever  under- 
stood him.  Again,  how  delicate  is  his  delineation  of  Hartley 
Coleridge  ;  how  firm  and  clear  his  study  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  ;  and 
how  graphically  he  paints  the  literary  pageant  of  Gibbon's  tame 
but  splendid  genius  !  Certainly  the  literary  taste  of  England  never 


Ill  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

made  a  greater  blunder  than  when  it  passed  by  this  remarkable 
volume  of  essays  with  comparatively  little  notice. 

In  1858  Bagehot  married  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Right 
Hon.  James  Wilson,  who'died  two  years  later  in  India,  whither  he 
had  gone,  as  the  financial  member  of  the  Indian  Council,  to  reduce 
to  some  extent  the  financial  anarchy  which  then  prevailed  there. 
This  marriage  gave  Bagehot  nineteen  years  of  undisturbed  hap- 
piness, and  certainly  led  to  the  production  of  his  most  popular  and 
original,  if  not  in  every  respect  his  most  brilliant  books.  It  con- 
nected him  with  the  higher  world  of  politics,  without  which  he 
would  hardly  have  studied  and  written  as  he  did  on  the  English 
Constitution  ;  and  by  making  him  the  editor  of  the  Economist,  it 
compelled  him  to  give  his  whole  mind  as  much  to  the  theoretic 
side  of  commerce  and  finance  as  his  own  duties  had  already  com- 
pelled him  to  give  it  to  the  practical  side.  But  when  I  speak  of 
his  marriage  as  the  last  impulse  which  determined  his  chief  work 
in  life,  I  do  not  forget  that  he  had  long  been  prepared  both  for 
political  and  for  financial  speculation  by  his  early  education.  His 
father,  a  man  of  firm  and  deliberate  political  convictions,  had  taken 
a  very  keen  interest  in  the  agitation  for  the  great  Reform  Bill  of 
1832,  and  had  materially  helped  to  return  a  Liberal  member  for  his 
county  after  it  passed.  Probably  no  one  in  all  England  knew  the 
political  history  of  the  country  since  the  Peace  more  accurately  than 
he  :  Bagehot  often  said  that  when  he  wanted  any  detail  concerning 
the  English  political  history  of  the  last  half-century,  he  had  only  to 
ask  his  father  to  obtain  it.  His  uncle,  Mr.  Vincent  Stuckey,  too, 
was  a  man  of  the  world,  and  his  house  in  Langport  was  a  focus  of 
many  interests  during  Bagehot's  boyhood.  Mr.  Stuckey  had  begun 
life  at  the  Treasury,  and  was  at  one  time  private  secretary  to  Mr. 
Huskisson  ;  and  when  he  gave  up  that  career  to  take  a  leading 
share  in  the  Somersetshire  Bank,  he  kept  up  for  a  long  time  his 
house  in  London  and  his  relations  with  political  society  there.  He 
was  fond  of  his  nephew,  as  was  Bagehot  of  him  ;  and  there  was 
always  a  large  field  of  interests,  and  often  there  were  men  of  emi- 
nence, to  be  found  in  his  house.  Thus  Bagehot  had  been  early 
prepared  for  the  wider  field  of  political  and  financial  thought  to 
which  he  gave  up  so  much  of  his  time  after  his  marriage. 

I  need  not  say  nearly  as  much  on  this  later  aspect  of  Bagehot's 
life  as  I  have  done  on  its  early  and  more  purely  literary  aspects, 
because  his  services  in  this  direction  are  already  well  appreciated 
by  the  public.  But  this  I  should  like  to  point  out,  — that  he  could 
never  have  written  as  he  did  on  the  English  Constitution  without 
having  acutely  studied  living  statesmen  and  their  ways  of  acting 


MEMOIR.  liii 


on  each  other  ;  that  his  book  was  essentially  the  book  of  a  most 
realistic,  because  a  most  vividly  imaginative,  observer  of  the  actual 
world  of  politics,  — the  book  of  a  man  who  was  not  blinded  by 
habit  and  use  to  the  enormous  difficulties  in  the  way  of  "gov- 
ernment by  public  meeting,"  and  to  the  secret  of  the  various  means 
by  which  in  practice  those  difficulties  had  been  attenuated  or  sur- 
mounted. It  is  the  book  of  a  meditative  man  who  had  mused 
much  on  the  strange  workings  of  human  instincts,  no  less  than  of 
a  quick  observer  who  had  seen  much  of  external  life.  Had  he 
not  studied  the  men  before  he  studied  the  institutions,  had  he 
not  concerned  himself  with  individual  statesmen  before  he  turned 
his  attention  to  the  mechanism  of  our  parliamentary  system,  he 
could  never  have  written  on  his  book  "The  English  Constitution." 
I  think  the  same  may  be  said  of  his  book  on  "Physics  and 
Politics,"  a  book  in  which  I  find  new  force  and  depth  every  time 
I  take  it  up  afresh.  It  is  true  that  Bagehot  had  a  keen  sympathy 
with  natural  science,  that  he  devoured  all  Mr.  Darwin's  and  Mr. 
Wallace's  books,  and  many  of  a  much  more  technical  kind, —  as  for 
example  Professor  Huxley's  on  the  "Principles  of  Physiology, "- 
and  grasped  the  leading  ideas  contained  in  them  with  a  firmness 
and  precision  that  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  But  after  all, 
' '  Physics  and  Politics "  could  never  have  been  written  without 
that  sort  of  living  insight  into  man  which  was  the  life  of  all  his 
earlier  essays.  The  notion  that  a  "cake  of  custom"  —  of  rigid, 
inviolable  law  —  was  the  first  requisite  for  a  strong  human  society, 
and  that  the  very  cause  which  was  thus  essential  for  the  first  step 
of  progress,  the  step  towards  unity,  was  the  great  danger  of  the 
second  step,  the  step  out  of  uniformity,  and  was  the  secret  of  all 
arrested  and  petrified  civilizations,  like  the  Chinese,  is  an  idea  which 
first  germinated  in  Bagehot's  mind  at  the  time  he  was  writing  his 
cynical  letters  from  Paris  about  stupidity  being  the  first  requisite 
of  a  political  people;  though  I  admit,  of  course,  that  it  could  not 
have  borne  the  fruit  it  did,  without  Mr.  Darwin's  conception  of  a 
natural  selection  through  conflict  to  help  it  on.  Such  passages  as 
the  following  could  evidently  never  have  been  written  by  a  mere 
student  of  Darwinian  literature,  nor  without  the  trained  imagination 
exhibited  in  Bagehot's  literary  essays:  — 

"No  one  will  ever  comprehend  the  arrested  civilizations  unless  he  sees 
the  strict  dilemma  of  early  society.  Either  men  had  no  law  at  all,  and  lived 
in  confused  tribes  hardly  hanging  together,  or  they  had  to  obtain  a  fixed 
law  by  processes  of  incredible  difficulty ;  those  who  surmounted  that  diffi- 
culty soon  destroyed  all  those  that  lay  in  their  way  who  did  not — and  then 
they  themselves  were  caught  in  their  own  yoke.  The  customary  discipline, 


liv  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

which  could  only  be  imposed  on  any  early  men  by  terrible  sanctions,  con- 
tinued with  those  sanctions,  and  killed  out  of  the  whole  society  the  pro- 
pensities to  variation  which  are  the  principle  of  progress.  Experience  shows 
how  incredibly  difficult  it  is  to  get  men  really  to  encourage  the  principle  of 
originality;"* 

and  as  Bagehot  held,  for  a  very  good  reason;  namely,  that  without 
a  long  accumulated  and  inherited  tendency  to  discourage  originality, 
society  would  never  have  gained  the  cohesion  requisite  for  effect- 
ive common  action  against  its  external  foes.  No  one,  I  think,  who 
had  not  studied  as  Bagehot  had,  in  actual  life,  first  the  vast  and 
unreasoning  conservatism  of  politically  strong  societies  like  that  of 
rural  England,  and  next  the  perilous  mobility  and  impressibility  of 
politically  weak  societies  like  that  of  Paris,  would  ever  have  seen 
as  he  did  the  close  connection  of  these  ideas  with  Mr.  Darwin's 
principle  of  natural  selection  by  conflict.  And  here  I  may  men- 
tion, by  way  of  illustrating  this  point,  that  Bagehot  delighted  in 
observing  and  expounding  the  bovine  slowness  of  rural  England 
in  acquiring  a  new  idea.  Somersetshire,  he  used  to  boast,  would 
not  subscribe  £1,000  "to  be  represented  by  an  archangel";  and 
in  one  letter  which  I  received  from  him  during  the  Crimean  war, 
he  narrated  with  great  gusto  an  instance  of  the  tenacity  with 
which  a  Somersetshire  rustic  stuck  to  his  own  notion  of  what  was 
involved  in  conquering  an  enemy.  "The  Somersetshire  view," 
he  wrote,  "of  the  chance  of  bringing  the  war  to  a  successful  con- 
clusion is  as  follows: — Countryman:  'How  old,  zir,  be  the  Zar?' 
Myself:  'About  sixty-three.'  Countryman:  'Well,  now,  I  can't  think 
however  they  be  to  take  he.  They  do  tell  I  that  Rooshia  is  a  very 
big  place,  and  if  he  doo  goo  right  into  the  middle  of  'n,  you  could 
not  take  he,  not  nohow.'  I  talked  till  the  train  came  (it  was  at 
a  station),  and  endeavored  to  show  how  the  war  might  be  finished 
without  capturing  the  Czar,  but  I  fear  without  effect.  At  last  he 
said,  'Well,  zir,  I  hope,  as  you  do  say,  sir,  we  shall  take  he,'  as 
I  got  into  the  carriage."  It  is  clear  that  the  humorous  delight 
which  Bagehot  took  in  this  tenacity  and  density  of  rural  concep- 
tions was  partly  the  cause  of  the  attention  which  he  paid  to  the 
subject.  No  doubt  there  was  in  him  a  vein  of  purely  instinctive 
sympathy  with  this  density,  for  intellectually  he  could  not  even  have 
understood  it.  Writing  on  the  intolerable  and  fatiguing  clever- 
ness of  French  journals,  he  describes  in  one  of  his  Paris  letters  the 
true  enjoyment  he  felt  in  reading  a  thoroughly  stupid  article  in  the 
Herald  (a  Tory  paper  now  no  more) ;  and  I  believe  he  was  quite 
sincere.  It  was,  I  imagine,  a  real  pleasure  to  him  to  be  able  to 

*"  Physics  and  Politics,"  pages  467,  468. 


MEMOIR.  IV 


preach  in  his  last  general  work  that  a  "cake  of  custom,"  just 
sufficiently  stiff  to  make  innovation  of  any  kind  very  difficult,  but 
not  quite  stiff  enough  to  make  it  impossible,  is  the  true  condition 
of  durable  progress. 

The  coolness  of  his  judgment,  and  his  power  of  seeing  both 
sides  of  a  question,  undoubtedly  gave  Bagehot's  political  opinions 
considerable  weight  with  both  parties;  and  I  am  quite  aware  that 
a  great  majority  of  the  ablest  political  thinkers  of  the  time  would 
disagree  with  me  when  I  say  that,  personally,  I  do  not  rate  Bage- 
hot's sagacity  as  a  practical  politician  nearly  so  highly  as  I  rate  his 
wise  analysis  of  the  growth  and  rationale  of  political  institutions. 
Everything  he  wrote  on  the  politics  of  the  day  was  instructive,  but  — 
to  my  mind  at  least  —  seldom  decisive ;  and  as  I  thought,  often  not 
true.  He  did  not  feel,  and  avowed  that  he  did  not  feel,  much 
sympathy  with  the  masses;  and  he  attached  far  too  much  relative 
importance  to  the  refinement  of  the  governing  classes.  That,  no 
doubt,  is  most  desirable,  if  you  can  combine  it  with  a  genuine 
consideration  for  the  interests  of  "the  toiling  millions  of  men  sunk 
in  labor  and  pain":  but  experience,  I  think,  sufficiently  shows  that 
they  are  often,  perhaps  even  generally,  incompatible;  and  that  demo- 
cratic governments  of  very  low  tone  may  consult  more  adequately 
the  leading  interests  of  the  "dim  common  populations"  than  aris- 
tocratic governments  of  very  high  caliber.  Bagehot  hardly  admitted 
this,  and  always  seemed  to  me  to  think  far  more  of  the  intellectual 
and  moral  tone  of  governments  than  he  did  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  interests  of  the  people  governed. 

Again,  those  who  felt  most  profoundly  Bagehot's  influence  as 
a  political  thinker  would  probably  agree  with  me  that  it  was  his 
leading  idea  in  politics  to  discourage  anything  like  too  much  action 
of  any  kind,  legislative  or  administrative,  and  most  of  all  anything 
like  an  ambitious  colonial  or  foreign  policy.  This  was  not  owing 
to  any  doctrinaire  adhesion  to  the  principle  of  laissez-faire.  He 
supported  —  hesitatingly,  no  doubt,  but  in  the  end  decidedly  —  the 
Irish  Land  Bill;  and  never  belonged  to  that  straitest  sect  of  the 
economists  who  decry,  as  contrary  to  the  laws  of  economy  and 
little  short  of  a  crime,  the  intervention  of  government  in  matters 
which  the  conflict  of  individual  self-interests  might  possibly  be 
trusted  to  determine.  It  was  from  a  very  different  point  of  view 
that  he  was  so  anxious  to  deprecate  ambitious  policies,  and  curb 
the  practical  energies  of  the  most  energetic  of  peoples.  Next  to 
Clough,  I  think  that  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis  had  the  most 
powerful  influence  over  him  in  relation  to  political  principles. 
There  has  been  no  statesman  in  our  time  whom  he  liked  so  much 


Ivi  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

or  regretted  so  deeply;  and  he  followed  him  most  of  all  in  depre- 
cating the  greater  part  of  what  is  called  political  energy.  Bagehot 
held  with  Sir  George  Lewis  that  men  in  modern  days  do  a  great 
deal  too  much;  that  half  the  public  actions  and  a  great  many  of 
the  private  actions  of  men  had  better  never  been  done ;  that  mod- 
ern statesmen  and  modern  peoples  are  far  too  willing  to  burden 
themselves  with  responsibilities.  He  held,  too,  that  men  have  not 
yet  sufficiently  verified  the  principles  on  which  action  ought  to 
proceed;  and  that  till  they  have  done  so,  it  would  be  better  far 
to  act  less.  Lord  Melbourne's  habitual  query,  ' '  Can't  you  let  it 
alone  ? "  seemed  to  him,  as  regarded  all  new  responsibilities,  the 
wisest  of  hints  for  our  time.  He  would  have  been  glad  to  find  a 
fair  excuse  for  giving  up  India,  for  throwing  the  colonies  on  their 
own  resources,  and  for  persuading  the  English  people  to  accept 
deliberately  the  place  of  a  fourth  or  fifth-rate  European  power  ;  which 
was  not  in  his  estimation  a  cynical  or  unpatriotic  wish,  but  quite 
the  reverse, — for  he  thought  that  such  a  course  would  result  in 
generally  raising  the  caliber  of  the  national  mind,  conscience,  and 
taste.  In  his  "Physics  and  Politics"  he  urges  generally,  as  I  have 
before  pointed  out,  that  the  practical  energy  of  existing  peoples  in 
the  West  is  far  in  advance  of  the  knowledge  that  would  enable 
them  to  turn  that  energy  to  good  account.  He  wanted  to  see  the 
English  a  more  leisurely  race,  taking  more  time  to  consider  all  their 
actions,  and  suspending  their  decisions  on  all  great  policies  and 
enterprises  till  either  these  were  well  matured,  or  —  as  he  expected 
it  to  be  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  —  the  opportunity  for  sensa- 
tional action  was  gone  by.  He  quotes  from  Clough  what  really 
might  have  been  taken  as  the  motto  of  his  own  political  creed:  — 

"  Old  things  need  not  be  therefore  true, 
O  brother  man,  nor  yet  the  new ; 
Ah,  still  awhile  the  old  thought  retain, 
And  yet  consider  it  again." 

And  in  all  this,  if  it  were  advanced  rather  as  a  principle  of  edu- 
cation than  as  a  principle  of  political  practice,  there  would  be  great 
force  ;  but  when  he  applied  this  teaching,  not  to  the  individual 
but  to  the  state,  not  to  encourage  the  gradual  formation  of  a  new 
type  of  character  but  to  warn  the  nation  back  from  a  multitude  of 
practical  duties  of  a  simple  though  arduous  kind,  such  as  those 
for  example  which  we  have  undertaken  in  India,  —  duties  the 
value  of  which,  performed  even  as  they  are,  could  hardly  be  over- 
rated, if  only  because  they  involve  so  few  debatable  and  doubtful 
assumptions,  and  are  only  the  elementary  tasks  of  the  hewers  of 
wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  the  civilization  of  the  future,  — 


MEMOIR.  Ivii 


I  think  Bagehot  made  the  mistake  of  attaching  far  too  little  value 
to  the  moral  instincts  of  a  sagacious  people,  and  too  much  to  the 
refined  deductions  of  a  singularly  subtle  intellect.  I  suspect  that  the 
real  effect  of  suddenly  stopping  the  various  safety  valves,  by  which 
the  spare  energy  of  our  nation  is  diverted  to  the  useful  work  of 
roughly  civilizing  other  lands,  would  be,  not  to  stimulate  the 
deliberative  understanding  of  the  English  people,  but  to  stunt  its 
thinking  as  well  as  its  acting  powers,  and  render  it  more  frivolous 
and  more  vacant -minded  than  it  is. 

In  the  field  of  economy  there  are  so  many  thinkers  who  are  far 
better  judges  of  Bagehot's  invaluable  work  than  myself  that  I  will 
say  a  very  few  words  indeed  upon  it.  It  is  curious,  but  I  believe 
it  to  be  almost  universally  true,  that  what  may  be  called  the  prim- 
itive impulse  of  all  economic  action  is  generally  also  strong  in  great 
economic  thinkers  and  financiers  ;  I  mean  the  saving,  or  at  least 
the  anti -spending,  instinct.  It  is  very  difficult  to  see  why  it  should 
be  so,  but  I  think  it  is  so.  No  one  was  more  large-minded  in  his 
view  of  finance  than  Bagehot.  He  preached  that  in  the  case  of  a 
rich  country  like  England,  efficiency  was  vastly  more  important 
than  the  mere  reduction  of  expenditure,  and  held  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone and  other  great  Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer  made  a  great 
deal  too  much  of  saving  for  saving's  sake.  None  the  less,  he  him- 
self had  the  anti-spending  instinct  in  some  strength;  and  he  was 
evidently  pleased  to  note  its  existence  in  his  favorite  economic 
thinker,  Ricardo.  Generous  as  Bagehot  was,  —  and  no  one  ever 
hesitated  less  about  giving  largely  for  an  adequate  end,  —  he  always 
told  me,  even  in  boyhood,  that  spending  was  disagreeable  to  him, 
and  that  it  took  something  of  an  effort  to  pay  away  money.  In  a 
letter  before  me,  he  tells  his  correspondent  of  the  marriage  of  an 
acquaintance,  and  adds  that  the  lady  is  a  Dissenter,  "and  there- 
fore probably  rich.  Dissenters  don't  spend,  and  quite  right  too." 
I  suppose  it  takes  some  feeling  of  this  kind  to  give  the  intellect  of 
a  man  of  high  capacity  that  impulse  towards  the  study  of  the  laws 
of  the  increase  of  wealth,  without  which  men  of  any  imagination 
would  be  more  likely  to  turn  in  other  directions. 

Nevertheless,  even  as  an  economist,  Bagehot's  most  original 
writing  was  due  less  to  his  deductions  from  the  fundamental 
axioms  of  the  modern  science  than  to  that  deep  insight  into  men 
which  he  had  gained  in  many  different  fields.  The  essays*  pub- 
lished in  the  Fortnightly  Review  for  February  and  May,  1876, — in 
which  he  showed  so  powerfully  how  few  of  the  conditions  of  the 
science  known  to  us  as  "political  economy"  have  ever  been  really 


*"The  Postulates  of  Political  Economy." 


Iviii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.?S  BAGEHOT. 

applicable  to  any  large  portion  of  the  globe  during  the  longest 
periods  of  human  history,  —  furnish  quite  an  original  study  in  social 
history  and  in  human  nature.  His  striking  book  "  Lombard  Street " 
is  quite  as  much  a  study  of  bankers  and  bill-brokers  as  of  the 
principles  of  banking.  Take,  again,  Bagehot's  view  of  the  intel- 
lectual position  and  value  of  the  capitalist  classes.  Every  one  who 
knows  his  writings  in  the  Economist  knows  how  he  ridiculed  the 
common  impression  that  the  chief  service  of  the  capitalist  class  — 
that  by  which  they  earn  their  profits  —  is  merely  what  the  late  Mr. 
Senior  used  to  call  "abstinence,"  —  that  is,  the  practice  of  deferring 
their  enjoyment  of  their  savings  in  order  that  those  savings  may 
multiply  themselves;  and  knows, 'too,  how  inadequate  he  thought 
it  merely  to  add  that  when  capitalists  are  themselves  managers, 
they  discharge  the  task  of  "superintending  labor"  as  well.  Bage- 
hot  held  that  the  capitalists  of  a  commercial  country  do  not  merely 
the  saving,  and  the  work  of  foremen  in  superintending  labor,  but 
all  the  difficult  intellectual  work  of  commerce  besides;  and  are  so 
little  appreciated  as  they  are  chiefly  because  they  are  a  dumb 
class,  who  are  seldom  equal  to  explaining  to  others  the  complex 
processes  by  which  they  estimate  the  wants  of  the  community  and 
conceive  how  best  to  supply  them.  He  maintained  that  capitalists 
are  the  great  generals  fcf  commerce;  that  they  plan  its  whole  strat- 
egy, determine  its  tactics,  direct  its  commissariat,  and  incur  the  dan- 
ger of  great  defeats,  as  well  as  earn  —  if  they  do  not  always  gain  — 
the  credit  of  great  victories.  Here  again  is  a  new  illustration  of 
the  light  which  Bagehot's  keen  insight  into  men,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  his  own  intimate  understanding  of  the  commercial  field, 
brought  into  his  economic  studies. 

He  brought  life  into  these  dry  subjects  from  almost  every  side. 
For  instance,  in  writing  to  the  Spectator,  many  years  ago,  about 
the  cliff  scenery  of  Cornwall,  and  especially  about  the  petty  harbor 
of  Boscastle,  with  its  fierce  sea,  and  its  two  breakwaters  which 
leave  a  mere  "Temple  Bar"  for  the  ships  to  get  in  at, — a  harbor 
of  which  he  says  that  "the  principal  harbor  of  Lilliput  probably 
had  just  this  look,"  —  he  goes  back  in  imagination  at  once  to 
the  condition  of  the  country  at  the  time  when  a  great  number  of 
such  petty  harbors  as  these  were  essential  to  such  trade  as  there 
was;  and  shows  that  at  that  time  the  Liverpool  and  London  docks 
not  only  could  not  have  been  built  for  want  of  money,  but  would 
have  been  of  no  use  if  they  had  been  built,  since  the  auxiliary 
facilities  which  alone  make  such  emporia  useful  did  not  exist. 
"Our  old  gentry  built  on  their  own  estates  as  they  could;  and  if 
their  estates  were  near  some  wretched  little  haven,  they  were  much 


MEMOIR.  lix 


pleased.  The  sea  was  the  railway  of  those  days.  It  brought,  as  it 
did  to  Ellangowan  in  Dirk  Hatteraick's  *  time,  brandy  for  the  men 
and  pinners  for  the  women,  to  the  loneliest  of  coast  castles."  It 
was  by  such  vivid  illustrations  as  this,  of  the  conditions  of  a  very 
different  commercial  life  from  our  own,  that  Bagehot  lit  up  the 
"dismal  science,"  till  in  his  hands  it  became  both  picturesque  and 
amusing. 

Bagehot  made  two  or  three  efforts  to  get  into  Parliament;  but 
after  an  illness  which  he  had  in  1868,  he  deliberately  abandoned 
the  attempt,  and  held  (I  believe  rightly)  that  his  political  judg- 
ment was  all  the  sounder,  as  well  as  his  health  the  better,  for  a 
quieter  life.  Indeed,  he  used  to  say  of  himself  that  it  would  be 
very  difficult  for  him  to  find  a  borough  which  would  be  willing 
to  elect  him  its  representative,  because  he  was  "between  sizes  in 
politics."  Nevertheless,  in  1866  he  was  very  nearly  elected  for 
Bridgewater,  but  was  by  no  means  pleased  that  he  was  so  near 
success;  for  he  stood  to  lose,  not  to  win,  in  the  hope  that  if  he 
and  his  party  were  really  quite  pure,  he  might  gain  the  seat  on 
petition.  He  did  his  very  best,  indeed,  to  secure  purity,  though 
he  failed.  As  a  speaker  he  did  not  often  succeed,  —  his  voice 
had  no  great  compass,  and  his  manner  was  somewhat  odd  to  ordi- 
nary hearers;  but  at  Bridgewater  he  was  completely  at  his  ease, 
and  his  canvass  and  public  speeches  were  decided  successes.  His 
examination,  too,  before  the  commissioners  sent  down  a  year  or  two 
later  to  inquire  into  the  corruption  of  Bridgewater,  was  itself  a 
great  success.  He  not  only  entirely  defeated  the  somewhat  eagerly 
pressed  efforts  of  one  of  the  commissioners,  Mr.  Anstey,  to  connect 
him  with  the  bribery,  but  he  drew  a  most  amusing  picture  of  the 
bribable  electors  whom  he  had  seen  only  to  shun.  I  will  quote  a 
little  bit  from  the  evidence  he  gave  in  reply  to  what  Mr.  Anstey 
probably  regarded  as  home-thrusts  :  — 

42,018  (Mr.  Anstey).  Speaking  from  your  experience  of  those  streets, 
when  you  went  down  them  canvassing  did  any  of  the  people  say  anything 
to  you,  or  in  your  hearing,  about  money?  —  Yes,  one  I  recollect  standing 
at  the  door,  who  said,  "  I  won't  vote  for  gentlefolks  unless  they  do  some- 
thing for  I.  Gentlefolks  do  not  come  to  I  unless  they  want  something  of 
I,  and  I  won't  do  nothing  for  gentlefolks  unless  they  do  something  for  me." 
Of  course  I  immediately  retired  out  of  that  house. 

42.019.  That  man   did   not  give  you   his   promise?  —  I  retired  immedi- 
ately ;  he  stood  in  the  doorway  sideways,  as  these  rustics  do. 

42.020.  Were   there  many  such   instances?  —  One    or  two,  I  remember. 
One  suggested  that  I  might  have  a  place.    I  immediately  retired  from  him. 


*In  "Guy  Mannering." 


IX         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

42.021.  Did  anybody  of  a  better  class  than  those  voters  (privately,  of 
course)   expostulate   with   you   against   your   resolution   to  be  pure  ?  —  No, 
nobody  ever  came  to  me  at  all. 

42.022.  But  those  about  you,  —  did  any  of  them  say  anything  of  this 
kind:  "Mr.  Bagehot,  you  are  quite  wrong  in  putting  purity  of  principles 
forward.    It  will  not  do  if  the   other  side  bribes?"  —  I   might  have  been 
told  that  I  should  be  unsuccessful,  in  the  stream  of  conversation ;    many 
people  may  have  told  me  that ;    that  is  how  I  gathered  that  if  the  other 
side  was  impure  and  we  were  pure,  I  should  be  beaten. 

42.023.  Can   you   remember  the  names  of   any  who  told   you   that?  — 
No,  I  cannot;    but  I  dare  say  I  was  told  by  as  man}7  as  twenty  people, 
and  we  went  upon  that  entire  consideration. 

To  leave  my  subject  without  giving  some  idea  of  Bagehot's 
racy  conversation  would  be  a  sin.  He  inherited  this  gift,  I  believe, 
in  great  measure  from  his  mother,  to  whose  stimulating  teaching 
in  early  life  he  probably  owed  also  a  great  deal  of  his  rapidity  of 
thought.  A  lady  who  knew  him  well  says  that  one  seldom  asked 
him  a  question  without  his  answer  making  you  either  think  or 
laugh,  or  both  think  and  laugh  together  ;  and  this  is  the  exact 
truth.  His  habitual  phraseology  was  always  vivid.  He  used  to 
speak,  for  instance,  of  the  minor  people — the  youths  or  admirers  — 
who  collect  round  a  considerable  man,  as  his  'fringe.'  It  was  he 
who  invented  the  phrase  '  padding '  to  denote  the  secondary  kind 
of  article  —  not  quite  of  the  first  merit,  but  with  interest  and  value 
of  its  own  —  with  which  a  judicious  editor  will  fill  up  perhaps 
three-quarters  of  his  review.  If  you  asked  him  what  he  thought 
on  a  subject  on  which  he  did  not  happen  to  have  read  or  thought 
at  all,  he  would  open  his  large  eyes  and  say,  "My  mind  is  'to  let' 
on  that  subject,  —  pray  tell  me  what  to  think  ; "  though  you  soon 
found  that  this  might  be  easier  attempted  than  done.  He  used  to 
say  banteringly  to  his  mother,  by  way  of  putting  her  off  at  a  time 
when  she  was  anxious  for  him  to  marry,  "  A  man's  mother  is  his 
misfortune,  but  his  wife  is  his  fault."  He  told  me  once,  at  a  time 
when  the  Spectator  had  perhaps  been  somewhat  more  eager  or 
sanguine  on  political  matters  than  he  approved,  that  he  always 
got  his  wife  to  "break"  it  to  him  on  the  Saturday  morning,  as 
he  found  it  too  much  for  his  nerves  to  encounter  its  views  with- 
out preparation.  Then  his  familiar  antitheses  not  unfrequently 
reminded  me  of  Dickens's  best  touches  in  that  line.  He  writes  to 
a  friend,  "Tell  -  -  that  his  policies  went  down  in  the  'Colombo,' 
but  were  fished  up  again.  They  are  dirty,  but  valid.'1  I  remember 
asking  him  if  he  had  enjoyed  a  particular  dinner  which  he  had 
rather  expected  to  enjoy,  but  he  replied,  '  No,  the  sherry  was  bad ; 
tasted  as  if  L had  dropped  his  A's  into  it.'  His  practical 


MEMOIR.  Ixi 


illustrations,  too,  were  full  of  wit.  In  his  address  to  the  Bridge- 
water  constituency,  on  the  occasion  when  he  was  defeated  by  eight 
votes,  he  criticized  most  happily  the  sort  of  bribery  which  ultimately 
resulted  in  the  disfranchisement  of  the  place :  — 

"I  can  make  allowance,"  he  said,  "for  the  poor  voter;  he  is  most  likely 
ill  educated,  certainly  ill  off,  and  a  little  money  is  a  nice  treat  to  him. 
What  he  does  is  wrong,  but  it  is  intelligible.  What  I  do  not  understand  is 
the  position  of  the  rich,  respectable,  virtuous  members  of  a  party  which 
countenances  these  things.  They  are  like  the  man  who  stole  stinking  fish : 
they  commit  a  crime,  and  they  get  no  benefit." 

But  perhaps  the  best  illustration  I  can  give  of  his  more  sardonic 
humor  was  his  remark  to  a  friend  who  had  a  church  in  the 
grounds  near  his  house: — "Ah,  you've  got  the  church  in  the 
grounds  !  I  like  that.  It's  well  the  tenants  shouldn't  be  quite 
sure  that  the  landlord's  power  stops  with  this  world."  And  his 
more  humorous  exaggerations  were  very  happy.  I  remember  his 
saying  of  a  man  who  was  excessively  fastidious  in  rejecting  under- 
done meat,  that  he  once  sent  away  a  cinder  "because  it  was  red"; 
and  he  confided  gravely  to  an  early  friend  that  when  he  was  in 
low  spirits,  it  cheered  him  to  go  down  to  the  bank  and  dabble 
his  hand  in  a  heap  of  sovereigns.  But  his  talk  had  finer  qualities 
than  any  of  these.  One  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  —  both  in 
early  life,  and  later  in  Lincoln's  Inn,  —  Mr.  T.  Smith  Osier,  writes 
to  me  of  it  thus:  — 

"  As  an  instrument  for  arriving  at  truth,  I  never  knew  anything  like  a 
talk  with  Bagehot.  It  had  just  the  quality  which  the  farmers  desiderated 
in  the  claret,  of  which  they  complained  that  though  it  was  very  nice,  it 
brought  them  '  no  forrader ' ;  for  Bagehot's  conversation  did  get  you  for- 
ward, and  at  a  most  amazing  pace.  Several  ingredients  went  to  this.  The 
foremost  was  his  power  of  getting  to  the  heart  of  the  subject,  taking  you 
miles  beyond  your  starting-point  in  a  sentence,  generally  by  dint  of  sinking 
to  a  deeper  stratum.  The  next  was  his  instantaneous  appreciation  of  the 
bearing  of  everything  you  yourself  said ;  making  talk  with  him,  as  Roscoe 
once  remarked,  'like  riding  a  horse  with  a  perfect  mouth.'  But  most 
unique  of  all  was  his  power  of  keeping  up  animation  without  combat.  I 
never  knew  a  power  of  discussion,  of  co-operative  investigation  of  truth, 
to  approach  to  it.  It  was  all  stimulus,  and  yet  no  contest." 

But  I  must  have  done;  and  indeed,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
convey,  even  faintly,  the  impression  of  Bagehot's  vivid  and  pun- 
gent conversation  to  any  one  who  did  not  know  him.  It  was  full 
of  youth,  and  yet  had  all  the  wisdom  of  a  mature  judgment  in 
it.  The  last  time  we  met,  only  five  days  before  his  death,  I  re- 
marked on  the  vigor  and  youthfulness  of  his  look,  and  told  him  he 
looked  less  like  a  contemporary  of  my  own  than  one  of  a  younger 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


42.021.  Did  anybody  of  a  better  class  than  those  voters  (privately,  of 
course)   expostulate   with   you   against   your   resolution   to  be  pure  ?  —  No, 
nobody  ever  came  to  me  at  all. 

42.022.  But  those  about  you,  —  did  any  of  them  say   anything  of  this 
kind  :  "  Mr.  Bagehot,  you  are  quite  wrong  in  putting  purity  of  principles 
forward.     It  will   not   do  if  the   other  side  bribes?"  —  I    might  have  been 
told  that  I  should  be  unsuccessful,  in   the  stream  of  conversation  ;    many 
people  may  have  told  me  that  ;    that  is  how  I  gathered  that  if  the  other 
side  was  impure  and  we  were  pure,  I  should  be  beaten. 

42.023.  Can   you   remember  the  names   of   any  who  told   you   that?  — 
No,  I  cannot;    but  I  dare  say  I  was  told  by  as  many  as  twenty  people, 
and  we  went  upon  that  entire  consideration. 

To  leave  my  subject  without  giving  some  idea  of  Bagehot's 
racy  conversation  would  be  a  sin.  He  inherited  this  gift,  I  believe, 
in  great  measure  from  his  mother,  to  whose  stimulating  teaching 
in  early  life  he  probably  owed  also  a  great  deal  of  his  rapidity  of 
thought.  A  lady  who  knew  him  well  says  that  one  seldom  asked 
him  a  question  without  his  answer  making  you  either  think  or 
laugh,  or  both  think  and  laugh  together  ;  and  this  is  the  exact 
truth.  His  habitual  phraseology  was  always  vivid.  He  used  to 
speak,  for  instance,  of  the  minor  people  —  the  youths  or  admirers  — 
who  collect  round  a  considerable  man,  as  his  'fringe.'  It  was  he 
who  invented  the  phrase  '  padding  '  to  denote  the  secondary  kind 
of  article  —  not  quite  of  the  first  merit,  but  with  interest  and  value 
of  its  own  —  with  which  a  judicious  editor  will  fill  up  perhaps 
three-quarters  of  his  review.  If  you  asked  him  what  he  thought 
on  a  subject  on  which  he  did  not  happen  to  have  read  or  thought 
at  all,  he  would  open  his  large  eyes  and  say,  "My  mind  is  'to  let' 
on  that  subject,  —  pray  tell  me  what  to  think  ;  "  though  you  soon 
found  that  this  might  be  easier  attempted  than  done.  He  used  to 
say  banteringly  to  his  mother,  by  way  of  putting  her  off  at  a  time 
when  she  was  anxious  for  him  to  marry,  "  A  man's  mother  is  his 
misfortune,  but  his  wife  is  his  fault."  He  told  me  once,  at  a  time 
when  the  Spectator  had  perhaps  been  somewhat  more  eager  or 
sanguine  on  political  matters  than  he  approved,  that  he  always 
got  his  wife  to  "break"  it  to  him  on  the  Saturday  morning,  as 
he  found  it  too  much  for  his  nerves  to  encounter  its  views  with- 
out preparation.  Then  his  familiar  antitheses  not  unfrequently 
reminded  me  of  Dickens's  best  touches  in  that  line.  He  writes  to 
a  friend,  "Tell  -  -  that  his  policies  went  down  in  the  'Colombo,' 
but  were  fished  up  again.  TTiey  are  dirty,  but  valid.'1  I  remember 
asking  him  if  he  had  enjoyed  a  particular  dinner  which  he  had 
rather  expected  to  enjoy,  but  he  replied,  '  No,  the  sherry  was  bad  ; 
tasted  as  if  L  --  had  dropped  his  K's  into  it.'  His  practical 


MEMOIR.  Ixi 


illustrations,  too,  were  full  of  wit.  In  his  address  to  the  Bridge- 
water  constituency,  on  the  occasion  when  he  was  defeated  by  eight 
votes,  he  criticized  most  happily  the  sort  of  bribery  which  ultimately 
resulted  in  the  disfranchisement  of  the  place:  — 

"I  can  make  allowance,"  he  said,  "for  the  poor  voter;  he  is  most  likely 
111  educated,  certainly  ill  off,  and  a  little  money  is  a  nice  treat  to  him. 
What  he  does  is  wrong,  but  it  is  intelligible.  What  I  do  not  understand  is 
the  position  of  the  rich,  respectable,  virtuous  members  of  a  party  which 
countenances  these  things.  They  are  like  the  man  who  stole  stinking  fish  : 
they  commit  a  crime,  and  they  get  no  benefit." 

But  perhaps  the  best  illustration  I  can  give  of  his  more  sardonic 
humor  was  his  remark  to  a  friend  who  had  a  church  in  the 
grounds  near  his  house: — "Ah,  you've  got  the  church  in  the 
grounds  !  I  like  that.  It's  well  the  tenants  shouldn't  be  quite 
sure  that  the  landlord's  power  stops  with  this  world."  And  his 
more  humorous  exaggerations  were  very  happy.  I  remember  his 
saying  of  a  man  who  was  excessively  fastidious  in  rejecting  under- 
done meat,  that  he  once  sent  away  a  cinder  "because  it  was  red"; 
and  he  confided  gravely  to  an  early  friend  that  when  he  was  in 
low  spirits,  it  cheered  him  to  go  down  to  the  bank  and  dabble 
his  hand  in  a  heap  of  sovereigns.  But  his  talk  had  finer  qualities 
than  any  of  these.  One  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  —  both  in 
early  life,  and  later  in  Lincoln's  Inn,  —  Mr.  T.  Smith  Osier,  writes 
to  me  of  it  thus:  — 

"  As  an  instrument  for  arriving  at  truth,  I  never  knew  anything  like  a 
talk  with  Bagehot.  It  had  just  the  quality  which  the  farmers  desiderated 
in  the  claret,  of  which  they  complained  that  though  it  was  very  nice,  it 
brought  them  '  no  forrader ' ;  for  Bagehot's  conversation  did  get  you  for- 
ward, and  at  a  most  amazing  pace.  Several  ingredients  went  to  this.  The 
foremost  was  his  power  of  getting  to  the  heart  of  the  subject,  taking  you 
miles  beyond  your  starting-point  in  a  sentence,  generally  by  diut  of  sinking 
to  a  deeper  stratum.  The  next  was  his  instantaneous  appreciation  of  the 
bearing  of  everything  you  yourself  said ;  making  talk  with  him,  as  Roscoe 
once  remarked,  'like  riding  a  horse  with  a  perfect  mouth.'  But  most 
unique  of  all  was  his  power  of  keeping  up  animation  without  combat.  I 
never  knew  a  power  of  discussion,  of  co-operative  investigation  of  truth, 
to  approach  to  it.  It  was  all  stimulus,  and  yet  no  contest." 

But  I  must  have  done;  and  indeed,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
convey,  even  faintly,  the  impression  of  Bagehot's  vivid  and  pun- 
gent conversation  to  any  one  who  did  not  know  him.  It  was  full 
of  youth,  and  yet  had  all  the  wisdom  of  a  mature  judgment  in 
it.  The  last  time  we  met,  only  five  days  before  his  death,  I  re- 
marked on  the  vigor  and  youthfulness  of  his  look,  and  told  him  he 
looked  less  like  a  contemporary  of  my  own  than  one  of  a  younger 


Ixii  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

generation.  In  a  pencil  note,  the  last  I  received  from  him,  written 
from  bed  on  the  next  day  but  one,  he  said,  "I  think  you  must 
have  had  the  evil  eye  when  you  complimented  me  on  my  appear- 
ance. Ever  since,  I  have  been  sickening,  and  am  now  in  bed  with 
a  severe  attack  on  the  lungs."  Indeed,  well  as  he  appeared  to  me, 
he  had  long  had  delicate  health,  and  heart  disease  was  the  imme- 
diate cause  of  death.  In  spite  of  a  heavy  cold  on  his  chest,  he 
went  down  to  his  father's  for  his  Easter  visit  the  day  after  I  last 
saw  him,  and  he  passed  away  painlessly  in  sleep  on  March  24, 
1877,  aged  51.  It  was  at  Herds  Hill  —  the  pretty  place  west  of 
the  river  Parret  that  flows  past  Langport,  which  his  grandfather 
had  made  some  fifty  years  before  —  that  he  breathed  his  last.  He 
had  been  carried  thither  as  an  infant,  to  be  present  when  the 
foundation  stone  was  laid  of  the  home  which  he  was  never  to 
inherit;  and  now  very  few  of  his  name  survive.  Bagehot's  family 
is  believed  to  be  the  only  one  remaining  that  has  retained  the 
old  spelling  of  the  name  as  it  appears  in  Domesday  Book,  the  mod- 
ern form  being  Bagot.  The  Gloucestershire  family  of  the  same 
name,  from  whose  stock  they  are  supposed  to  have  sprung,  died 
out  in  the  beginning  of  this  century. 

Not  very  many,  perhaps,  outside  Bagehot's  own  inner  circle,  will 
carry  about  with  them  that  hidden  pain,  that  burden  of  empti- 
ness, inseparable  from  an  image  which  has  hitherto  been  one  full  of 
the  suggestions  of  life  and  power,  when  that  life  and  power  are 
no  longer  to  be  found;  for  he  was  intimately  known  only  to  the 
few.  But  those  who  do  will  hardly  find  again  in  this  world  a 
store  of  intellectual  sympathy  of  so  high  a  stamp,  so  wide  in  its 
range  and  so  full  of  original  and  fresh  suggestion;  a  judgment  to 
lean  on  so  real  and  so  sincere;  or  a  friend  so  frank  and  constant, 
with  so  vivid  and  tenacious  a  memory  for  the  happy  associations 
of  a  common  past,  and  so  generous  in  recognizing  the  independent 
value  of  divergent  convictions  in  the  less  pliant  present. 


BAGEHOT  AS  AK  ECONOMIST,* 

BY   ROBERT   GIFFEN. 

THE  publication  of  these  "Economic  Studies,"  the  incomplete  frag- 
ments of  a  book  on  English  political  economy  which  Bagehot  was 
engaged  upon  at  the  time  of  his  death,  suggests  to  me  the  task,  I 
had  almost  said  the  duty,  of  endeavoring  to  estimate  the  position 
which  he  held  as  an  economist  and  the  service  he  has  rendered  to 
economic  science.  Readers  of  the  present  book  will  see  at  once  the 
reason  of  this  in  Mr.  Button's  statement  in  the  preface,  that  during 
the  last  years  of  Bagehot's  life  I  ' '  had  a  better  knowledge  of  his 
economic  mind  than  any  other  person."  I  should  not  like  to  claim 
for  myself  so  much  as  this  statement  implies.  Bagehot  was  not 
given  to  egotistical  gossip  about  himself,  or  what  he  had  done  or 
meant  to  do  ;  he  left  his  works  as  they  were  completed  to  speak 
for  themselves.  To  some  extent  I  can  only  appreciate  his  finished 
work  as  it  is  open  to  all  the  world  to  appreciate  it.  But  it  was 
my  happy  fortune  in  the  last  nine  years  of  his  life,  when  his  writing 
was  mainly  on  economic  subjects,  to  be  intimately  associated  with 
him  in  the  conduct  of  the  Economist  newspaper.  During  this  period, 
accordingly,  I  had  not  only  to  discuss  topics  of  political  economy 
with  him,  especially  the  topics  of  banking  and  the  money  market, 
incessantly,  but  I  had  to  know  his  mind  so  thoroughly  on  all  lead- 
ing subjects  of  the  day  as  to  be  able  to  write  in  accordance  with 
his  views  when  he  was  himself  at  a  distance.  It  will  be  my  own 
fault,  therefore,  if  I  have  not  something  to  contribute  towards  a 
knowledge  of  his  work ;  while  the  ability  to  do  so  constitutes  a 
corresponding  obligation,  considering  how  important  that  work  was: 
although,  as  I  have  said,  I  can  pretend  to  little  explicit  knowledge, 
beyond  what  can  be  derived  from  the  writings  themselves,  of  what 
Bagehot  thought  or  intended  to  accomplish. 

I  must  claim,  however,  some  indulgence  in  attempting  the  task 
I  propose.  I  had  only  too  little  thought,  whilst  we  were  together, 
that  such  a  task  would  ever  devolve  on  me ;  and  I  should  have 


•Economic  Studies.    By  the  late  Walter  Bagehot.    Edited  by  Richard  Holt 
Hutton.     London :  Longmans.    1880. 

( Ixiii ) 


1X1V  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.    CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

accounted  it  almost  a  profanation  to  contemplate  writing  of  so  inti- 
mate a  friend,  and  on  this  subject  also  in  some  degree  a  master.  I 
am  thus  unable  to  remember  much  that  I  should  like  to  recall. 
Nor  can  I  lay  any  claim  to  experience  in  literary  criticism,  which 
would  be  so  invaluable  in  writing  of  a  man  himself  so  perfect  in 
this  kind  of  work.  If  I  can  tell  something  which  may  afterwards 
help  an  expert  critic  in  discussing  Bagehot's  position  and  work  as 
an  economist,  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  my  success,  however  imper- 
fect my  own  estimate  may  be.  It  will  be  generally  agreed,  I 
believe,  that  his  labors  were  so  important  as  to  command  an  at- 
tempt like  this,  at  whatever  cost  and  risk  to  the  writer  himself. 

i. 

LET  me  do  something  at  the  outset  to  describe  my  own  view  of 
his  leading  characteristics  and  qualifications  as  a  writer  on  economic 
subjects.  Mr.  Button  has  described  so  fully  and  perfectly  what 
Bagehot  was  as  a  writer  altogether,  and  this  upon  a  basis  of  knowl- 
edge and  intimacy  which  no  other  friend  could  possess,  that  all  I 
can  hope  to  say  is  by  way  of  supplement;  but  Mr.  Button  has  pur- 
posely left  a  blank  in  his  description,  and  perhaps  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  added.  So  far  as  he  goes,  however,  I  can  only  echo 
what  he  has  said  in  protest  against  the  common  idea  of  Bagehot  as 
being  primarily  an  economist,  instead  of  his  being  primarily  a  man 
of  letters  of  strong  genius  and  imagination,  who  happened,  amongst 
other  things,  and  subordinate  to  other  things  viewing  his  literary 
life  as  a  whole,  to  take  up  with  "Political  Economy."  This  point 
is  so  important  in  any  description  of  Bagehot  as  an  economist,  and 
of  the  characteristic  work  he  did,  that  I  may  quote  in  extenw  what 
Mr.  Button  has  said:  — 

"  While  of  course  it  has  given  me  great  pleasure,  as  it  must  have  given 
pleasure  to  all  Bagehot's  friends,  to  hear  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer's 
evidently  genuine  tribute  to  his  financial  sagacity  in  the  Budget  speech  of 
1877,  and  Lord  Granville's  eloquent  acknowledgments  of  the  value  of  Bage- 
hot's political  counsels  as  editor  of  the  Economist  in  the  speech  delivered 
at  the  London  University  on  May  9,  1877,  I  have  sometimes  felt  somewhat 
unreasonably  vexed  that  those  who  appreciated  so  well  what  I  may  almost 
call  the  smallest  part  of  him  appeared  to  know  so  little  of  the  essence  of 
him,  —  of  the  high-spirited,  buoyant,  subtle,  speculative  nature,  in  which 
the  imaginative  qualities  were  even  more  remarkable  than  the  judgment, 
and  were  indeed  at  the  root  of  all  that  was  strongest  in  the  judgment;  of 
the  gay  and  dashing  humor  which  was  the  life  of  every  conversation  in 
which  he  joined ;  and  of  the  visionary  nature  to  which  the  commonest  things 
often  seemed  the  most  marvelous,  and  the  marvelous  things  the  most  intrin- 
sically probable.  To  those  who  hear  of  Bagehot  only  as  an  original  politi- 
cal economist  and  a  lucid  political  thinker,  a  curiously  false  image  of  him 


BAGEHQT  AS  AN  ECONOMIST. 


must  be  suggested.  If  they  are  among  the  multitude  misled  by  Carlyle,  who 
regard  all  political  economists  as  '  the  dreary  professors  of  a  dismal  science,' 
they  will  probably  conjure  up  au  arid  disquisitiouist  on  value  and  cost  of 
production  ;  and  even  if  assured  of  Bagehot's  imaginative  power,  they  may 
perhaps  only  understand  by  the  expression  that  capacity  for  feverish  pre- 
occupation which  makes  the  mention  of  '  Peel's  Act  '  summon  up  to  the 
faces  of  certain  fanatics  a  hectic  glow,  or  the  rumor  of  paper  currencies  blanch 
others  with  the  pallor  of  true  passion.  The  truth,  however,  is,  that  the 
best  qualities  which  Bagehot  had,  both  as  economist  and  as  politician,  were 
of  a  kind  which  the  majority  of  economists  and  politicians  do  not  specially 
possess.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  was  in  any  way  an  accident  that  he  was  an 
original  thinker  in  either  sphere;  far  from  it.  But  1  do  think  that  what 
he  brought  to  political  and  economical  science  he  brought  in  some  sense 
from  outside  their  normal  range,  that  the  man  of  business  and  the  financier 
in  him  fell  within  such  sharp  and  well-defined  limits  that  he  knew  better 
than  most  of  his  class  where  their  special  weakness  lay,  and  where  their 
special  functions  ended." 

No  one  who  drank  even  for  a  little  of  the  champagne  of  Bage- 
hot's wide  discursive  talk,  full  of  humor  and  side  lights  on  every 
subject  he  touched,  will  fail  to  appreciate  this  description.  He 
was  as  far  as  possible  from  giving  the  idea  of  a  man  with  a  special 
genius  for  a  subject  and  much  absorbed  in  it.  As  far  as  my  own 
experience  goes,  our  business  talks,  though  having  for  end  and 
object  the  conduct  of  a  political  and  business  newspaper,  always 
traveled  much  wider  than  the  record.  Not  to  speak  of  his  interest 
in  literature  and  philosophy,  he  had  the  keenest  interest,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  essential  differences  of  system  between  English  and 
Scotch  law  and  English  and  Scotch  forms  of  local  and  judicial 
administration,  a  subject  which  grew  out  of  some  business  topics  in 
the  beginning  of  our  acquaintance;  in  the  art  of  money-making, 
as  distinguished  from  mere  knowledge  and  skill  in  economics  and 
the  methods  and  subjects  of  business;  in  the  working  of  personal 
motives  of  revenge  and  the  like,  as  they  affected  the  great  game 
which  was  constantly  playing  before  us  in  the  City;  similarly,  in 
politics,  in  the  personal  element,  the  personal  and  family  relationships 
of  our  public  men,  which  he  believed  to  have  far  more  effect  on 
the  course  of  politics  and  parties,  and  the  making  or  marring  of 
careers,  than  the  outside  world  supposes.  I  only  mention  a  frag- 
ment of  the  things  about  which  he  was  intellectually  curious,  and 
which  were  yet  far  enough  away  from  the  special  subjects  before  us. 
Nothing  of  this  will  seem  surprising  to  the  editors  and  contributors 
of  our  leading  journals,  who  know  how  necessary  it  is  that  the  mind 
should  play  freely  about  many  subjects  to  be  able  to  choose  prop- 
erly a  line  upon  any  one  subject;  but  Bagehot  undoubtedly  pos- 
sessed the  <?wm-omniscience  so  necessary  in  the  highest  journalism 
VOL.  I—  E 


THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


as  well  as  the  best  literature  in  an  unusual  degree,  and  as  such  he 
could  not  be  primarily  an  economist  as  the  world  understood  him. 
He  was  something  very  much  greater,  —  a  thinker  of  some  new  ideas 
of  great  value  in  the  science,  and  a  describer  of  the  modern  world 
of  business,  which  is  so  different  from  the  world  of  business  that 
existed  only  one  or  two  generations  ago,  and  which  alone  could  be 
in  the  minds  of  earlier  writers  on  political  economy;  and  he  was  all 
this  in  part  because  the  study  of  political  economy  formed  only  a 
portion  of  his  intellectual  interests. 

Perhaps  I  may  add,  at  the  risk  of  saying  something  apparently 
tending  to  diminish  his  reputation,  but  which  it  seems  absolutely 
necessary  to  say  in  order  to  make  quite  clear  how  he  was  great, 
that  there  was  a  disposition,  among  politicians  especially,  to  defer 
to  Bagehot  as  an  economic  authority  on  subjects  where  he  had  no 
claim  to  authority,  and  which  were  foreign  to  the  special  work  he 
did.  For  reasons  which  will  afterwards  appear,  he  was  not  "first," 
I  think,  on  currency  or  finance,  or  almost  any%of  the  dismal  topics 
which  are  usually  thought  to  be  the  main  things  in  economic  sci- 
ence. There  could  be  no  better  practical  adviser  on  such  topics, 
and  the  advice  was  so  good  that  people  did  not  reflect  on  its  being 
due  to  qualities  which  were  outside  the  economic  range;  but  he 
was  not  the  authority,  in  the  strict  sense,  which  those  who  took 
the  advice  supposed.  To  give  only  one  illustration  of  how  he  was 
wrongly  deferred  to  :  the  other  day  a  remark  in  one  of  his  Silver 
essays  respecting  the  fall  in  silver,  to  the  effect  that  "so  grave  a 
misfortune  has  seldom  happened  to  any  government  so  suddenly 
and  so  completely  from  causes  out  of  its  control,"  was  quoted  by  a 
rising  member  of  the  present  government  as  conclusive  of  the  sin- 
gularity and  magnitude  of  the  evil  of  loss  by  exchange  on  which 
the  Indian  government  is  always  dwelling.  I  doubt  if  the  obiter 
dicta  of  authors  any  more  than  of  judges  are  properly  quotable  in 
this  way;  they  ought  not  to  count  unless  they  are  material  in  the 
argument:  and  I  am  quite  sure,  if  he  had  lived,  Bagehot  would 
have  modified  his  judgment  as  to  the  loss  of  the  Indian  govern- 
ment, the  statement  of  which  he  had  been  content  at  first  to  take 
from  themselves.  But  what  I  wish  to  observe  is,  that  Bagehot  was 
no  special  authority  on  such  a  point  at  all,  having  neither  the 
statistical  nor  financial  knowledge  at  first  sight  necessary  to  form  a 
judgment.  The  statement  is  palpably  untrue.  Every  government 
that  has  had  to  submit  to  war  and  invasion  has  suffered  far  more 
from  such  causes  than  the  Indian  government  from  the  fall  in  sil- 
ver ;  and  that  government  itself  has  suffered  quite  as  much,  if  not 
more,  from  famines  as  it  has  really  suffered  from  the  fall  in  silver. 


BAGEHOT  AS   AN   ECONOMIST.  Ixvii 

If  Bagehot  had  had  time  to  study  the  subject,  and  had  had  before 
him  the  evidence  pro  and  con  as  to  what  the  loss  of  the  Indian 
government  really  is,  his  opinion  would  have  been  practically  valu- 
able, and  probably  a  safe  one  to  follow ;  but  it  would  not  have  been 
so  as  that  of  an  authority  on  the  subject  itself,  forming  a  first-hand 
opinion  upon  it.  His  special  province  was  something  much  greater, 
but  at  the  same  time  entirely  different. 

While  his  wide  imagination  and  various  knowledge  fitted  Bagehot 
to  be  a  discoverer  and  describer  in  the  economic  field,  I  would 
notice  as  a  special  quality  his  business  imagination.  He  notes  this 
as  a  quality  of  James  Wilson,  in  language  so  felicitous  that  there 
is  nothing  more  to  be  said  in  describing  what  is  meant  by  this 
quality,  though  it  was  not  in  Bagehot,  as  he  states  it  to  have  been 
in  Wilson,  a  "predominating  power."  Still  it  was  present  so  largely 
as  to  be  most  striking.  What  he  says  of  Wilson  is:  — 

"He  had  a  great  power  of  conceiving  transactions.  Political  economy 
was  to  him  the  science  of  buying  and  selling ;  aud  of  the  ordinary  bargains 
of  men  he  had  a  very  steady  and  distinct  conception.  In  explaining  such 
subjects  he  did  not  begin,  as  political  economists  have  been  wittily  said  to 
do,  with  'Suppose  a  man  upon  an  island,'  but  'What  they  do  in  the  City 
is  this,'  '  The  real  course  of  business  is  so  and  so.  .  .  .'  His  '  business 
imagination'  enabled  him  to  see  'what  men  did'  and  'why  they  did  it;' 
'why  they  ought  to  do  it'  and  'why  they  ought  not  to  do  it.'  " 

Political  economy  was  certainly  more  to  Bagehot  than  the  sci- 
ence of  buying  and  selling;  but  so  far  as  it  is  concerned  with  buy- 
ing and  selling,  he  had  all  the  power  which  he  ascribes  to  James 
Wilson  to  understand  it.  Given  a  set  of  circumstances,  no  matter 
how  novel,  he  would  predict  what  the  business  man  would  do  and 
what  the  net  result  of  the  operation  would  be.  Most  people  will 
recollect  how  he  predicted  in  his  Silver  essays  that  the  fall  in  the 
exchange  with  India  would  stimulate  exports  from  that  country 
and  check  imports  of  goods  into  it,  thus  stimulating  the  import 
of  silver  —  a  prediction  which  was  strikingly  fulfilled.  This  was 
entirely  the  fruit  of  his  "business  imagination."  He  knew,  as  by 
an  instinct,  what  the  business  man  would  do  in  the  new  circum- 
stances; and  "putting  two  and  two  together."  he  was  able  to  pre- 
dict the  result  as  well.  But  the  quality  with  Bagehot  was  not 
confined  to  a  knowledge  of  what  particular  operations  and  their 
results  would  be.  As  I  have  said,  he  was  deeply  interested  in  the 
art  of  money-making,  and  he  imagined  vividly  the  entire  mental 
state  of  business  men.  How  profits  were  made  in  different  trades 
—  in  a  whole  class,  for  instance,  such  as  insurance  and  banking, 
by  means  of  money  being  brought  to  those  engaged  in  them,  who 
required  no  capital  of  their  own  except  by  way  of  guarantee  and 


Ixviii  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

to  obtain  credit  —  was  a  constant  study  to  him,  as  were  the  shifts 
and  devices  of  the  straggling  and  unsuccessful  traders  in  all  trades. 
The  result  is  seen  in  every  page  almost  of  his  writing.  He  is  the 
very  antithesis  of  the  literary  economists  whom  he  describes  as 
"like  physiologists  who  have  never  dissected  ;  like  astronomers  who 
have  never  seen  the  stars."  But  the  eye  brings  to  a  subject  what 
it  has  the  power  of  seeing;  and  there  have  been  literary  economists 
conversant  with  business  and  immersed  in  it  as  Bagehot  was,  whose 
eyes  were  blinded  that  they  could  not  see. 

Another  feature  I  should  like  to  put  forward  as  characteristic  of 
Bagehot  was  his  "quantitative"  sense  —  his  knowledge  and  feeling 
of  the  "how  much"  in  dealing  with  the  complex  working  of 
economic  tendencies.  Much  economic  writing  is  abstract,  and 
necessarily  so.  Yoii  can  say,  for  instance,  that  import  duties  tend 
to  diminish  trade  between  countries,  and  that  import  duties  on 
articles  imported  from  abroad,  the  same  kind  of  articles  being  pro- 
duced at  home,  are  peculiarly  mischievous;  or  that  fluctuating 
exchanges,  are  injurious  to  trade.  But  in  the  concrete  world  there 
is  something  more  to  be  done.  Here  the  "how  much"  is  very 
often  the  only  vital  question.  Fluctuating  exchanges  may  be  injuri- 
ous to  trade,  but  then  they  may  be  more  tolerable  than  the  evils 
incidental  to  some  remedial  course  you  propose.  Import  duties  may 
also  have  to  be  tolerated  as  less  injurious  or  more  practicable  than 
some  other  form  of  taxation;  and  even  import  duties  which  are 
Protective  may  in  given  circumstances  have  to  be  submitted  to,  for 
the  sake  of  revenue  or  td  prevent  the  mischief  of  too  sudden 
changes.  In  dealing  with  concrete  things,  then,  and  the  .applica- 
tions of  his  science,  the  economist  must  know  where  to  place  his 
emphasis, — to  be  able  to  measure  one  evil  against  another  and  one 
force  against  another.  And  the  sense  necessary  for  this  was  Bage- 
hot's  in  an  unusual  degree.  This  is  conspicuously  manifest  in  one 
of  the  discussions  he  was  most  interested  in,  —  that  of  the  bank 
reserve,  which  occupies  so  large  a  space  in  his  "Lombard  Street." 
The  amount  of  that  reserve,  the  kind  of  liabilities  it  has  to  meet 
as  well  as  their  amount,  the  nature  and  measure  of  the  forces 
which  may  act  on  it  and  through  it  on  the  rate  of  discount,  are 
all  questions  in  which  degree  is  everything,  and  which  require 
much  discussion  in  the  concrete;  although  in  the  abstract  it  is  so 
easy  to  say  that  bankers  must  keep  an  adequate  reserve,  and  that 
rates  of  discount  must  rise  when  it  is  becoming  inadequate,  and  fall 
when  it  is  becoming  redundant.  But  everywhere  and  always  this 
quantitative  sense  was  present  when  the  discussion  made  it  necessary. 
And  the  value  of  this  quality  cannot,  I  believe,  be  overestimated. 


BAGEHOT  AS   AX  ECONOMIST.  Ixix 

The  most  useful  part  of  economic  writing  now  requires  the  use  of 
quantitative  methods,  or  at  least  the  appreciation  of  quantities. 
The  effect  of  all  economic  changes  or  tendencies  in  the  mass  can 
only  be  appreciated  quantitatively;  and  it  is  with  the  effect  in  the 
mass,  not  merely  with  tendencies  in  the  abstract,  that  people  are 
concerned.  The  abstract  science  was  a  necessary  preliminary,  but 
it  is  mainly  a  means  to  an  end. 

I  do  not  mean  by  all  this  that  the  economist  who  weighs  quan- 
tities should  be  himself  a  skilled  manipulator  of  figures;  although 
the  power  of  manipulating  them,  and  so  dealing  with  evidence  at 
first-hand,  may  be  indispensable  to  the  best  authority  on  statistical 
and  financial  questions.  Indeed,  much  of  the  interest  for  me  in 
Bagehot's  possession  of  this  quantitative  sense  lies  in  the  fact  that 
one  of  the  difficulties  he  had  to  contend  with  in  life,  as  Mr.  Hut- 
ton  notices  in  his  memoir,  was  a  repugnance  to  minute  detail, 
including  an  aversion  to  manipulate  figures,  all  but  amounting  to 
inability  to  "add  up."  The  petty  detail  which  most  people  find 
easy  enough  was  beyond  measure  irksome  to  him ;  and  the  irksome- 
ness  was  aggravated,  when  I  knew  him,  by  weak  eyesight.  But 
columns  of  figures  are  not  statistics,  though  they  are  the  raw  mate- 
rial of  statisticians;  and  this  Bagehot  fully  proved  by  his  remark- 
able appreciation  of  the  numerical  element  in  economic  problems, 
all  the  while  he  had  these  technical  difficulties  in  his  way.  In 
this  quality  he  was  second  to  no  statistician  I  have  ever  met, 
and  infinitely  superior  to  most.  Though  it  is  a  less  material  point, 
I  should  like  to  add,  for  the  sake  of  bringing  out  the  true  mean- 
ing and  value  of  statistics,  that  irksome  as  the  detail  of  figures  was 
to  him,  and  naturally  also  the  detail  of  constructing  statistical 
tables,  he  was  a  singularly  good  judge  and  critic  of  such  tables 
and  the  results  they  brought  out.  He  knew  what  tables  could  be 
made  to  say,  and  the  value  of  simplicity  in  their  construction.  He 
had  an  intense  dislike  of  that  vice  of  almost  all  amateur  statis- 
ticians, and  not  a  few  experts,  the  attempt  to  put  too  much  into 
their  tables.  He  likewise  laid  down  a  rule  which  I  have  found 
invaluable  for  the  preparation  of  all  accounts  and  statistical  tables: 
that  after  you  have  had  the  most  accurate  clerks  to  do  them,  you 
should  not  "pass"  them  without  having  them  examined  by  an  ex- 
pert in  the  subject,  who  would  be  able,  if  there  was  occasion,  to 
detect  something  substantially  and  flagrantly  wrong  which  had 
escaped  the  notice  of  the  mechanical  compilers.  Thus  he  was  not 
a  statistician  in  the  technical  sense,  perhaps,  and  so  could  not  be 
the  authority  on  some  subjects  he  was  sometimes  supposed  to  be  ; 
but  he  possessed  the  essential  qualifications  for  dealing  with  and 


1XX  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

reflecting  on  statistical  data  when  they  came  in  his  way,  and  a  suf- 
ficient sense  of  quantity  to  lean  upon  and  to  guide  him  in  his  own 
studies  and  writing.  . 

Every  writer  has  the  defect  of  his  qualities;  and  I  should  say 
that  Bagehot,  while  possessing  the  inventive  and  imaginative  mind, 
which  enabled  him  to  discover  and  to  describe  so  clearly,  did  not 
excel  either  in  that  labored  ratiocination  or  minute  analysis  which 
are  essential  to  the  highest  success  in  some  branches  of  economic 
study.  He  could  both  sustain  a  long  argument  and  analyze  mi- 
nutely; whatever  he  had  to  do  he  did  thoroughly,  and  took  what 
pains  were  necessary, —  in  some  cases  he  had  conspicuously  that 
transcendent  capacity  for  taking  trouble  which  Carlyle  describes  as 
the  quality  of  genius:  still,  it  did  not  "come  natural"  to  him  to 
do  either  of  these  things,  and  he  was  not  here  conspicuously  suc- 
cessful. If  the  reader  will  compare  Chapters  12  and  13  of  his 
essays  on  Silver  with  the  "  Lombard  Street,"  or  even  the  essay  on  the 
"Cost  of  Production"  in  the  present  volume  with  the  first  essay 
on  the  "Postulates  of  Political  Economy,"  he  will  perceive  what  I 
mean.  The  argument  in  the  first  cases  is  labored  and  difficult,  and 
I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  throughout  altogether  clear;  while  in  the 
second  cases  there  is  an  ease  and  power  and  a  transparent  clearness 
which  impress  the  most  careless  reader.  Perhaps  the  two  qualities 
are  incompatible;  but  at  any  rate  Bagehot  was  pre-eminently  an 
inventor  and  describer,  and  that  in  bold  and  broad  outlines,  and 
not  a  laboring  reasoner  or  exhaustive  analyst.  This  was  one  reason, 
I  think,  in  addition  to  the  difficulties  in  his  way  as  a  financier  and 
statistician,  why  he  was  not  an  economic  authority  of  the  sort  some- 
times supposed,  though  he  was  a  much  higher  authority. 

Let  me  add  a  word  or  two  on  his  style;  at  least  on  his  later 
style,  less  buoyant  and  elastic  than  his  earlier,  as  Mr.  Hutton  tells 
us.  With  this  style  I  was  bound  to  be  extremely  familiar;  and  as 
Bagehot  was  fond  of  talking  about  style,  I  came  to  know  various 
points  of  excellence  at  which  he  consciously  aimed.  His  natural 
tendency  was  that  way,  but  he  also  labored  to  be  conversational, 
to  put  things  in  the  most  direct  and  picturesque  manner,  as  people 
would  talk  to  each  other  in  common  speech,  to  remember  and  use 
expressive  colloquialisms.  Such  Americanisms  as  the  "shrinkage" 
of  values  he  had  a  real  liking  for,  and  constantly  applied  them.  I 
have  known  an  eminent  German  economist  so  caught  by  this  style 
as  to  imagine  that  Bagehot  was  a  self-taught  business  man  and  not 
a  scholar,  whereas  he  was  peculiarly  a  scholar  and  a  student;  not 
only  highly  educated,  but  choosing  literature  for  his  mistress  at  the 
sacrifice  of  success  in  other  pursuits  which  were  open  to  him. 


BAGEHOT   AS  AN  ECONOMIST. 


Besides  this  conversational  tone,  Bagehot  aimed  at  an  excessive 
simplicity,  formed  in  part  by  his  habit  of  writing  for  the  "City." 
In  his  essay  on  Adam  Smith  he  ascribes  the  success  of  the  latter, 
compared  with  Hume  who  also  wrote  soundly  enough  on  political 
economy,  to  the  directness  and  convincingness  of  his  style,  which 
impressed  the  ordinary  business  man,  whereas  Hume  and  other 
literary  writers  seemed  to  be  playing  with  their  subject;  and 
Bagehot  seemed  to  have  been  guided  by  this  belief  in  his  own 
later  writing  generally,  as  he  certainly  was  in  the  Economist.  He 
had  always  some  typical  City  man  in  his  mind's  eye;  a  man  not 
skilled  in  literature  or  the  turnings  of  phrases,  with  a  limited 
vocabulary  and  knowledge  of  theory,  but  keen  as  to  facts,  and 
reading  for  the  sake  of  information  and  guidance  respecting  what 
vitally  concerned  him.  To  please  this  ideal  City  man,  Bagehot 
would  use  harsh  and  crude  or  redundant  expressions,  sometimes 
ungrammatical  if  tried  by  ordinary  tests;  anything  to  drive  his 
meaning  home.  Thus  in  turning  over  the  pages  of  "  Lombard  Street  " 
at  random  I  find  such  phrases  as  "money-market  money,"  "bor- 
rowable  money,"  "alleviative  treatment,"  "one  of  these  purposes  is 
the  meeting  a  demand  for  cash";  and  sentences  like  this,  "Conti- 
nental bankers  and  others  instantly  send  great  sums  here,  as  soon 
as  the  rate  shows  that  it  can  be  done  profitably,"  where  the 
"instantly"  is  grammatically  superfluous  though  it  helps  to  drive 
the  meaning  home.  For  such  awkwardnesses  Bagehot  not  only  did 
not  care,  but  he  was  even  eager  to  use  them  sometimes  if  he 
thought  they  would  arrest  attention.  He  was  always  most  careful, 
too,  to  see  that  the  drift  of  any  passage,  the  impression  a  hasty 
reader  of  the  kind  described  would  get  from  it,  was  exactly  what 
he  intended.  He  was  never  content  merely  with  having  the  mean- 
ing there  provided  the  words  were  delicately  and  nicely  weighed  ; 
the  meaning  must  shine  through  the  words:  and  he  detested  all 
writing  which  gave  a  false  impression,  however  verbally  exact.  If 
I  may  quote  my  own  experience,  he  was  always  amused  to  come 
up  from  the  City  and  give  me  in  a  sentence  —  The  City  says  you 
think  so  and  so  —  the  meaning  of  a  long  article  on  which  I  had 
labored,  perhaps  using  many  figures.  Hence  I  believe  one  of  the 
excellences  of  his  later  style.  It  was  rhetoric  deliberately  and 
skillfully  used  by  a  master  after  years  of  practice,  and  which  so 
impresses  his  meaning  as  no  other  writing  I  know  of  on  economic 
subjects,  except  Adam  Smith's,  impresses.  This  style  was  a  weapon 
admirably  fitted  for  the  work  he  did  and  was  peculiarly  qualified 
to  do,  though  the  description  of  it  also  shows  of  itself  that  there 
are  some  topics  of  economic  discussion  for  which  it  is  unfit. 


Ixxii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

II. 

We  come,  then,  to  the  question  of  the  work  which  Bagehot  has 
actually  done  as  an  economist.  As  far  as  books  are  concerned,  it 
consists  mainly  of  two  volumes:  "Lombard  Street:  A  Description  of 
the  Money  Market,"  published  in  1873,  and  the  present  "Economic 
Studies,"  part  of  which  were  published  in  this  Review  some  time 
before  his  death,  and  the  remainder  was  found  among  his  papers, 
being  all  that  he  has  left  of  a  descriptive  and  historical  account  of 
the  ideas  of  English  political  economy.  In  addition,  he  published 
many  years  ago,  in  a  collected  form,  some  articles  on  International 
Money,  suggesting  as  a  step  towards  that  end  an  assimilation  of 
English  and  American  money  on  a  plan  which  he  describes;  and 
he  had  in  readiness  for  publication  when  he  died  a  similar  collec- 
tion of  his  articles  on  the  Depreciation  of  Silver,  which  was  soon 
after  published.  But  however  valuable  in  themselves, 'the  last  two 
were  obviously  minor  works,  both  in  subject  and  treatment,  com- 
pared with  the  "Economic  Studies"  and  the  "Lombard  Street,"  on 
which  Bagehot's  reputation  must  now  mainly  rest.  Of  course  these 
books  do  not  represent  his  whole  work.  As  a  journalist,  he  has 
left  innumerable  articles  which  it  would  be  hopeless  to  collect ;  and 
both  in  journalism  and  conversation  he  was  the  propagator  of  fruit- 
ful ideas  which  had  not  a  little  influence  on  the  course  of  affairs 
and  on  the  education  of  the  public  in  matters  of  political  economy. 
It  will  be  more  difficult  to  show  the  work  he  did  in  this  way  than 
it  is  to  describe  his  literary  effort;  but  to  the  present  generation  at 
least,  this  part  of  his  life  must  be  allowed  its  due  importance. 
What  I  should  say  of  all  —  of  the  journalism  and  the  conversation, 
as  well  as  the  books  —  would  be,  that  Bagehot's  work,  as  I  have 
already  indicated,  consisted  in  thinking  original  thoughts  as  to  the 
whole  scope  and  method  of  political  economy,  as  well  as  some 
important  topics  in  it,  and  expressing  these  thoughts  in  a  striking 
and  convincing  manner;  and  also  in  describing  broadly  and  clearly 
the  leading  outlines  of  the  science,  as  well  as  the  features  of  the 
modern  organization  of  business, — the  great  commerce,  —  which  he 
understood  to  be  practically  the  subject-matter  of  the  science.  The 
two  kinds  of  work  were  closely  interconnected,  his  new  ideas  being 
the  result  of  his  general  powers  of  vision  and  description;  and  his 
characteristic  achievement,  I  should  say,  is,  that  he  has  described 
the  science  and  its  subject-matter  in  such  a  way  as  to  put  them  in 
a  wholly  new  light.  I  believe  there  is  a  special  need  of  description 
of  the  subject  in  the  present  stage  of  economic  discussion;  but  no 
literary  student  requires  to  be  told  generally  how  much  good 
description  goes  for  in  any  complex  questions.  To  describe  is  to 


BAGEHOT   AS  AN   ECONOMIST.  Ixxiii 

solve  complex  problems ;  or  at  least  to  show  the  limits  to  the  care- 
ful and  exact  logician,  who  may  afterwards  be  trusted  to  apply  his 
processes  with  success,  though  he  has  not  himself  the  keenness  of 
imagination  to  outline  the  precise  subject  from  the  confused  mass 
of  facts  presented  to  him.  It  was  for  description  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  word  that  Bagehot  was  peculiarly  prepared  when  he 
came  to  the  consideration  of  economic  questions,  and  in  description 
his  characteristic  work  consists. 

Going  more  into  detail,  I  begin  with  the  "Economic  Studies"  as 
being  really,  with  all  their  incompleteness,  the  most  important  work 
which  Bagehot  left.  This  is  the  result,  in  part,  of  its  connection 
with  what  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all  his  non-economic 
writing, — his  "Physics  and  Politics,"  —  which  contain  the  germ  of 
the  idea  worked  out  in  these  studies.  On  the  first  page  of  that 
book  we  read:  — 

"One  peculiarity  of  this  age  is  the  sudden  acquisition  of  much  physical 
knowledge.  There  is  scarcely  a  department  of  science  or  art  which  is  the 
same,  or  at  all  the  same,  as  it  was  fifty  years  ago.  A  new  world  of  inventions 
—  of  railways  and  of  telegraphs  —  has  grown  up  arouud  us  which  we  caunot 
help  seeing ;  a  new  world  of  ideas  is  in  the  air  and  affects  us,  though  we  do 
not  see  it.  A  full  estimate  of  these  effects  would  require  a  great  book,  and  I 
am  sure  I  could  not  write  it ;  but  I  think  I  may  usefully,  in  a  few  papers,  show 
how  upon  one  or  two  great  points  the  new  ideas  are  modifying  two  old  sci- 
ences,—  politics  and  political  economy." 

But  the  "Physics  and  Politics"  do  not  themselves  contain  the 
fulfilment  of  this  promise,  as  far  as  political  economy  is  concerned. 
Though  some  of  the  illustrations  are  from  the  world  of  business, 
particularly  the  striking  illustration  in  the  chapter  on  the  ''Age  of 
Discussion,"  as  to  the  "animated  moderation"  which  is  the  secret 
of  success  with  the  typical  English  man  of  business,  yet  the  book 
itself  only  shows  how  political  ideas  have  been  evolved  and  how 
the  political  life  of  modern  communities  has  grown  to  be  possible, 
and  omits  altogether,  or  at  least  does  not  treat  with  the  same 
directness,  the  economic  ideas.  The  oversight  I  believe  to  have  been 
due  to  the  illness  which  interrupted  the  composition  of  the  "Physics 
and  Politics,"  an  interruption  which  seems  even  to  have  altered  the 
plan  of  the  book  as  it  was  being  written ;  still  the  omission  remains. 
But  the  thread  which  was  dropped  in  "Physics  and  Politics"  is  here 
taken  up  again  in  these  "Economic  Studies,"  which  thus  form  a 
sequel  to  the  former  work.  The  "  Postulates  of  Political  Economy" 
and  the  "Preliminaries  of  Political  Economy"  are  chapters  clearly 
belonging  to  the  main  idea  of  the  "Physics  and  Politics."  The  word 
"preliminaries"  even  corresponds  to  the  "preliminary  age"  which 
forms  the  first  chapter  of  the  latter  book.  The  description  of  an 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.    CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


economic  as  distinguished  from  a  non-economic  state  of  society, 
and  of  the  transition  from  the  latter  to  the  former  stage,  is  also 
clearly  parallel  to  the  description  in  the  "Physics  and  Politics"  of 
the  age  of  discussion  and  the  transition  into  it  from  the  earlier 
ages. 

This  statement  of  the  scope  of  the  "Economic  Studies"  almost 
indicates  of  itself  the  leading  idea  which  Bagehot  has  worked  out. 
His  main  statement  is,  that  the  notions  of  English  political  economy, 
which  is  an  abstract  science,  instead  of  being  universally  applicable 
to  all  men  in  all  ages,  as  the  founders  of  the  science  in  some  con- 
fused manner  assumed,  are  in  fact  ouly  applicable  to  real  life  with 
qualifications,  and  are  only  applicable  approximately  to  societies 
organized  for  business  on  a  basis  of  free  contract  and  with  capital 
and  labor  freely  transferable,  as  that  of  England  very  nearly  is  now 
and  is  tending  more  and  more  to  be.  Of  course  it  is  not  quite 
true  that  writers  like  Adam  Smith  and  Ricardo  really  imagined  the 
applicability  of  their  doctrines  to  be  so  universal  as  they  sometimes 
appeared  to  assume;  they  had  a  consciousness  that  their  doctrines 
were  limited  in  the  concrete,  and  the  practical  direction  of  much 
of  their  writing  was  itself  a  proof  that  they  realized  in  some  way 
the  limitations  of  their  f  science  :  but  certainly  they  did  not  define 
sharply  what  the  concrete  limitations  were  or  were  likely  to  be,  or 
indicate  their  sense  of  the  continual  change  going  on  in  actual  con- 
ditions. Many  later  writers  of  course  have  insisted  on  this  abstract 
character  of  economics;  and  there  is  an  angry  quarrel,  as  is  well 
known,  between  them  and  the  "historical  school"  in  political 
economy,  because  the  latter  insists  that  the  science  pretends  to  be 
concrete,  or  is  nothing  if  it  is  not  concrete,  while  they  maintain 
that  in  that  light  it  is  manifestly  not  true.  But  what  Bagehot  has 
done  is  not  merely,  like  other  writers,  to  point  out  the  abstract 
character  of  the  science,  but  to  prove  as  against  the  historical 
school  that  there  is  an  age  and  society  —  the  whole  business  world 
of  England  at  the  present  time,  and  a  large  part  of  other  modern 
communities  —  in  which  the  assumptions  of  English  political  econo- 
my are  approximately  true  in  the  concrete  as  well  as  in  the 
abstract.  We  are  in  an  economic  age,  and  the  leading  assumptions 
of  political  economy  are  applicable  with  comparatively  little  fric- 
tion, so  that  the  abstract  doctrines  can  be  applied  to  a  concrete 
world. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  go  over  in  detail  the  assumptions  and  lead- 
ing ideas  of  English  political  economy  which  Bagehot  takes  up  one 
by  one,  and  shows  to  be  approximately  true  of  the  English  business 
world  at  the  present  time.  The  field  he  travels  over  is  very  large; 


BAGEHOT   AS  AN   ECONOMIST.  1XXV 

and  his  remarks  are  so  suggestive,  both  as  to  differences  in  the 
economic  condition  of  different  countries,  which  modify  the  appli- 
cation to  them  of  the  English  doctrines,  and  as  to  the  gradual 
extension  of  the  area  over  which  the  English  doctrines  are  true  in 
the  concrete,  that  it  would  be  impossible  within  any  brief  limits  to 
give  a  full  notion  of  the  value  of  the  work.  The  way,  for  instance, 
in  which  he  explains  the  modification  of  the  Malthusian  doctrine 
of  population  necessary  in  new  countries,  the  modification  which  it 
requires  from  the  existence  of  these  new  countries  even  in  old 
countries  themselves,  and  the  possibility  of  the  doctrine  itself  being 
modified  in  old  countries  for  physiological  reasons,  while  an  exact 
account  of  the  really  true  doctrine  at  a  given  moment  is  being 
made  possible  by  means  of  statistics,  would  take  many  pages  to 
describe  and  discuss.  The  discussion  again  on  the  transferability 
of  labor  and  transferability  of  capital,  as  being  practically  arrived 
at  in  English  business,  would  also  take  pages  to  describe,  as  well 
as  raise  interesting  points  for  discussion.  It  would  be  most  in- 
structive to  compare,  for  instance,  Bagehofs  assumption  of  com- 
plete transferability  in  both  cases  as  the  characteristic  of  English 
business,  with  the  limitations  in  the  concrete  which  Professor 
Cairnes  urges  as  regards  labor  in  one  of  his  most  able  essays.* 
Bagehot  seems  to  me  right  in  assuming  the  transferability  in 
England  as  practically  comp'ete,  compared  at  least  with  the  state  of 
matters  in  a  non-economic  age;  but  there  are  few  writers  so  exact 
as  Professor  Cairnes,  of  whom  Bagehot  had  the  highest  opinion, 
and  their  difference  of  view  here,  or  rather  apparent  difference, 
would  be  most  interesting  to  follow  out.  It  is  enough,  however, 
for  the  present  to  mark  how  much  the  leading  idea  of  this  book 
shifts  the  landmarks  of  economic  study  over  a  wide  field  and  alters 
the  whole  view  of  the  science. 

In  two  other  ways  these  "Economic  Studies,"  imperfect  as  they 
are,  seem  to  me  most  valuable.  The  personal  sketches  of  Adam 
Smith,  Malthus,  and  Ricardo,  with  the  fragment  on  Mill,  help  in 
the  directest  way  to  the  comprehension  of  their  characteristic  work 
in  economic  science,  as  Bagehot  understood  it.  I  doubt  if  his  esti- 
mate of  Adam  Smith,  whom  it  is  not  so  easy  to  see  round,  is  ade- 
quate: but  the  sketches  of  Malthus  and  Ricardo;  the  description  of 
the  accidental  way  in  which  the  former,  "a  mild  pottering  person," 
came  to  accomplish  his  great  revolution  in  economic  thought;  and 
the  way  in  which  Ricardo,  a  Jew  by  race,  and  accustomed  to  work 
in  a  market  where  the  articles  dealt  in  are  immaterial,  and  where 


*Cairne8's  "Some  Leading  Principles  of  Political   Economy,''   page   70 
et  seq. 


Ixxvi  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  assumptions  of  political  economy  are  true,  was  able  to  found 
the  abstract  science  as  it  is  now  understood, — seem  to  be  almost 
perfect.  Ricardo  was  certainly,  in  Bagehot's  opinion,  as  I  knew 
from  conversation  as  well  as  from  this  sketch,  by  far  the  best 
writer  on  the  subject,  in  spite  of  defects  in  expression  and  other 
difficulties  which  Bagehot  describes  in  this  sketch;  and  one  of  the 
best  services  he  has  rendered  to  the  study  is  perhaps  to  restore 
Ricardo  to  his  proper  position  as  an  authority.  The  other  way  in 
which  the  book  excels  is  in  the  richness  and  vigor  of  the  remarks 
on  business;  which  is  no  doubt  a  feature  of  all  Bagehot's  writing, 
but  here  comes  out  most  strongly,  as  he  is  dealing  with  the  entire 
differences  between  an  economic  and  a  non-economic  age.  He  says 
of  the  "Wealth  of  Nations,"  that  there  are  scarcely  five  consecutive 
pages  in  it  "which  do  not  contain  some  sound  and  solid  observa- 
tion, important  in  practice  and  replete  with  common-sense.  The 
most  experienced  man  of  business  would  have  been  proud  of  such 
a  fund  of  just  maxims  fresh  from  life."  And  much  the  same,  it 
seems  to  me,  may  be  said  of  these  "  Economic  Studies  " ;  the  maxims, 
I  may  observe,  being  very  often  such  as  Bagehot  would  frequently 
use  in  his  talk.  There  is  a  good  specimen  in  the  chapter  on  the 
Growth  of  Capital,  where  he  traces  to  a  sound  rule  of  business  one 
of  the  motives  for  the  accumulation  of  capital  in  a  business  age :  — 

"  The  pecuniary  classes  have  a  general  feeling  of  '  liability '  about  their 
minds  to  which  other  classes  are  strangers ;  and  justly,  because  their  risks  — 
not  only  their  known  but  their  unknown  ones  —  are  greater.  I  once  heard 
a  very  experienced  man  lay  down  this  principle:  —  'A  man  of  business,'  he 
said,  '  ought  not  to  be  over-cautious  ;  he  ought  to  take  what  seem  good  things 
in  his  trade  pretty  much  as  they  come ;  he  won't  get  any  good  by  trying  to 
see  through  a  millstone.  But  he  ought  to  put  all  his  caution  into  his  "reserve 
fund";  he  may  depend  on  it  he  will  be  "doue"  somehow  before  long,  and 
probably  when  he  least  thinks  it ;  he  ought  to  heap  up  a  great  fund  in  a 
shape  in  which  he  can  use  it,  against  the  day  at  which  he  wants  it.'  It  is 
the  disposition  so  generated  which  is  in  a  trading  nation  among  the  strongest 
motives  to  save." 

But  Bagehot's  felicity  of  business  illustration  is  too  well  known 
and  recognized  to  need  any  further  reference  to  this  point.  In  all 
he  says  about  business  he  is  like  a  witness  to  the  facts  of  which 
political  economy  has  to  treat;  and  hence,  I  believe,  the  peculiar 
value  of  his  description  of  the  economic  age  which  we  find  in 
these  "Economic  Studies."  It  must  be  a  never- failing  subject  of 
regret  that  the  book  is  incomplete;  that  the  testimony  is  cut  short 
just  when  we  begin  to  understand  it,  and  see  what  it  would  have 
been. 

Coming  to  the  "Lombard  Street,"  the  remark  I  would  make  is, 
that  this  book  is  also,  and  even  more  strikingly  than  the  "Economic 


BAGEHOT  AS  AN  ECONOMIST.  Ixxvii 

Studies,"  a  book  of  description.  Bagehot's  own  alternative  title  for 
it  was  "A  Description  of  the  Money  Market."  Its  scope  is  not  so 
wide,  as  the  money  market  is  only  a  department  of  the  great  field 
of  the  science,  though  an  important  department;  but  it  is  wide 
enough  to  make  the  book  a  considerable  one,  especially  as  Bagehot 
treats  the  subject.  The  money  market  is  not  only  described  in  a 
series  of  remarkable  pictures  of  its  chief  objects, — the  Bank  of 
England,  the  joint-stock  banks,  the  private  banks,  and  the  discount 
houses, — but  the  description  necessarily  involves  a  frequent  reference 
to  the  whole  organization  of  the  "great  commerce."  The  sources 
of  the  loanable  fund  with  which  the  monetary  institutions  of  Lom- 
bard Street  have  to  deal,  the  democratic  structure  of  English  com- 
merce which  has  arisen  through  the  facility  which  men  with  small 
capital  have  of  borrowing,  the  transferability  of  capital  in  England, 
the  reasons  for  quick  fluctuations  in  the  value  of  money  by  which 
the  action  of  the  different  institutions  is  affected,  and  many  other 
peculiarities  of  the  whole  business  organization,  all  come  in  for 
their  share  of  explanation,  and  are  fully  explained  in  and  for  them- 
selves after  Bagehot's  usual  manner,  and  •  not  merely  by  way  of 
allusion  as  they  bear  on  the  subject  in  hand.  In  some  degree,  there- 
fore, "Lombard  Street"  even  anticipates  the  "Economic  Studies." 
And  its  value  in  this  respect  was  quickly  appreciated.  Professor 
Cairnes  quotes  from  it,  in  his  "Leading  Principles,"  in  1874,  a  de- 
scription of  the  transferability  of  capital  which  contains  in  petto  the 
idea  worked  out  in  the  second  essay  of  the  "Economic  Studies,"  on 
the  "Postulates  of  Political  Economy."*  The  "Economic  Studies" 
make  a  greater  work;  but  "Lombard  Street"  explains  in  some  degree 
how  it  grew,  and  why  Bagehot's  testimony  is  so  valuable  as  to  the 
organization  of  the  great  commerce.  He  was  a  witness  and  observer 
of  the  central  part  of  the  organization ;  and  it  was  his  merit  to  have 
started  the  idea  of  giving  a  description,  as  well  as.  to  have  carried 
it  into  execution.  The  conception  of  the  London  money  market  as 
an  organization  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  any  one  before. 
It  would  hardly  come  within  my  province  to  describe  the  book 
minutely  or  offer  criticism  upon  it,  especially  as  "  Lombard  Street " 
so  speedily  found  a  high  place  in  popular  estimation.  Unluckily  for 
myself,  too,  I  had  not  the  opportunity  of  taking  it  in  "in  a  lump," 
as  I  gradually  became  acquainted  with  its  descriptions  and  its  prin- 
ciples in  the  first  years  of  my  acquaintance  with  Bagehot,  before 
the  book  itself  was  written ;  and  I  revised  the  rough  notes  of  the 
book  itself,  and  afterwards  the  completed  sheets,  almost  the  whole 


*  Compare    Professor    Cairnes's    "Leading    Principles,"    page    68,    with 
'Economic  Studies,"  page  41  et  seq. 


Ixxviii          THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

book  being  practically  written  twice  over.  But  perhaps  I  may  say 
that  it  appears  to  me  the  most  finished  in  form  of  anything  that 
Bagehot  has  done.  He  was  full  of  the  subject,  which  had  occupied 
much  of  his  life  for  many  years  before  he  wrote;  and  his  aim,  in 
which  he  perfectly  succeeded,  was  to  impress  both  men  of  business 
—  to  whom,  as  I  have  said,  he  consciously  adapted  his  later  style  — 
and  the  outside  world  of  literary  and  public  men  who  had  no  special 
acquaintance  with  City  subjects.  The  only  other  work  to  compare 
it  with  is  the  "English  Constitution,"  which  is  a  description  of  the 
organization  of  English  political  life,  in  the  same  realistic  method 
as  Bagehot  has  pursued  in  describing  the  organization  or  constitu- 
tion of  the  City;  but  "Lombard  Street"  seems  even  more  careful, 
thorough,  and  realistic.  It  shows  the  high-water  mark  of  what 
Bagehot  could  do  in  point  of  form  and  execution,  and  adds  to  the 
regret  that  time  was  not  left  him  to  finish  the  "Economic  Studies" 
in  the  same  fashion. 

Apart  from  its  special  excellence  as  a  descriptive  book,  "Lom- 
bard Street "  likewise  contains,  I  believe,  Bagehot's  most  valuable 
contributions  to  economic  science,  irrespective  of  what  he  has  done 
in  the  "Economic  Studies"  and  elsewhere  to  exhibit  the  relation  of 
the  science  to  others  and  its  modification  by  the  new  ideas  of  the  age. 
He  was  really,  if  not  the  discoverer,  at  any  rate  the  first  writer  who 
insisted  upon  and  worked  out  as  a  cardinal  principle  of  the  money 
market  the  maintenance  of  the  bank  reserve.  One  has  only  to 
look  back  into  the  old  books  of  political  economy  to  see  how  com- 
pletely the  topic  was  not  only  overlooked,  but  not  even  dreamt  of. 
But  Bagehot  makes  it  one  of  the  themes  and  practical  objects  of 
the  "Lombard  Street";  explaining  fully  why  bankers  should  keep  a 
cash  reserve,  why  the  Bank  of  England  has  a  special  duty  in  the 
matter  by  the  usage  of  the  market,  the  principles  which  should 
regulate  the  amount  of  the  reserve,  the  way  in  which  the  manage- 
ment of  it  affects  the  rate  of  discount  or  interest,  the  proper  use 
of  it  in  a  panic,  and  in  fact  the  whole  lore  of  the  subject  almost 
from  beginning  to  end.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  doctrine  alone  is 
a  very  large  contribution  to  economics,  and  would  have  done  much 
to  make  the  reputation  of  an  economist  who  was  that  and  nothing 
more.  So  much  turns  on  the  management  of  bank  reserves  as  an 
influence  on  the  economic  condition  of  modern  industrial  communi- 
ties, and  that  influence  is  becoming  daily  so  much  greater,  that 
what  Bagehot  has  done  in  this  way  cannot  but  grow  in  importance 
as  time  goes  by. 

Another  important  contribution  he  has  made  in  "Lombard  Street" 
is  in  popularizing  the  notion  of  a  tendency  in  business  to  ebb  and 


BAGEHOT  AS  AN  ECONOMIST. 


flow;  to  be  all  excited  and  prosperous  with  a  high  level  of  prices 
at  one  time,  and  languid  and  unprosperous  with  a  low  level  of 
prices  at  another.  This  rhythmical  or  cyclical  movement  in  trade, 
though  not  yet  fully  accepted  by  literary  economists,  is  a  familiar 
enough  idea  to  the  ordinary  speculator  in  the  City,  and  is  embed- 
ded in  a  well-known  book,  —  which  is  not,  however,  read  so  much 
as  it  ought  to  be,  —  Tooke's  "History  of  Prices,"  while  there  is  much 
other  business  writing  in  which  the  same  idea  is  found  ;  but  Bage- 
hot  takes  it  up  and  makes  it  his  own,  besides  giving  a  psychologi- 
cal explanation  of  it  which  should  go  far  to  make  it  acceptable 
even  to  the  merely  literary  economist,  who  is  clamorous  for  proof. 
Bagehot's  own  testimony  as  a  witness  should  count  for  a  great 
deal,  his  chapter  on  "Why  Lombard  Street  is  sometimes  highly 
excited  and  sometimes  very  dull"  being  in  fact  valuable  as  a  piece 
of  evidence  as  much  as  any  other  part  of  the  description  in  the 
book.  What  Bagehot  has  done  on  this  head  seems  also  the  more 
valuable,  because  along  with  the  general  tone  of  the  book  it  popu- 
larizes and  generalizes  the  idea  of  aggregate  effects  arising  from 
the  working  of  economic  tendencies,  which  tendencies  can  be 
traced  and  their  effects  within  certain  limits  predicted.  When  we 
come  to  concrete  economy,  we  have  not  only  to  deal  with  modifica- 
tions of  the  abstract  science,  but  a  new  class  of  phenomena  is 
brought  before  us  which  may  be  the  subject  of  scientific  treatment; 
and  of  this  class  "Lombard  Street"  gives  a  sketch,  besides  prepar- 
ing the  way  for  studying  them  by  the  outline  of  the  business  or- 
ganization to  which  the  phenomena  relate. 

It  is  more  difficult,  as  I  have  said,  to  give  an  idea  of  what 
Bagehot  did  as  a  journalist  and  as  a  propagator  of  economic  ideas 
in  conversation,  and  by  means  of  the  great  prestige  and  influence 
he  had  acquired  in  the  political  world.  Discussions  arise  and  pass 
away,  and  what  each  man  did  in  them  it  is  not  easy  to  trace. 
This  is  plain  as  regards  what  passes  in  conversation  and  private 
notes;  but  even  in  journalism  it  would  not  be  easy  by  a  collection 
of  articles,  assuming  .that  the  articles  themselves  on  passing  topics 
would  be  interesting  enough  to  collect,  to  give  a  notion  of  what  a 
particular  journalist  did.  Sometimes  it  happens  that  a  man  with 
a  special  knowledge  of  a  particular  subject  cannot  write  upon  it 
when  the  occasion  arises,  because  he  is  busy  with  something  else  ; 
so  that  his  ideas  have  to  be  filtered  through  another  mind  if  they 
are  made  public  at  all.  Sometimes  much  of  his  own  writing  has 
to  be  on  subjects  not  specially  interesting  to  him,  and  where  he  is 
perhaps  the  funnel  for  another  man's  ideas.  Thus  the  articles  of  a 
journalist,  apart  from  their  fugitive  character,  which  is  an  obvious 


1XXX  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

drawback,  may  be  a  very  imperfect  representation  of  his  contribu- 
tion in  the  shape  of  ideas  to  a  particular  journal.  Bagehot  was 
happily  situated  for  avoiding  the  latter  difficulty,  of  sometimes 
writing  another  man's  ideas  on  another  man's  subject  instead  of  his 
own,  though  he  could  not  altogether  escape  the  necessity  of  writing 
on  what  did  not  much  interest  him;  but  he  could  not  escape  at  all 
the  necessity  of  passing  on  favorite  subjects  and  ideas  to  others. 
All  I  can  do,  then,  is  to  point  out  one  or  two  leading  matters 
where  his  ideas  did  influence  the  course  of  affairs  and  contribute 
to  the  education  of  the  public  mind.  His  doctrine  about  the  bank 
reserve  was  one  of  them,  communicated  to  the  world  and  incul- 
cated upon  it  in  innumerable  articles,  of  his  own  and  others,  but  all 
stimulated  by  his  ideas,  long  before  "Lombard  Street"  was  written. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  the  doctrine  about  the  cycles  in  business, 
a  principal  part  of  his  chapter  in  "Lombard  Street"  where  that  idea 
is  explained  consisting  of  the  textual  quotation  of  a  long  article 
which  he  wrote  about  the  beginning  of  1872,  when  his  "Lombard 
Street"  itself  was  being  written.  The  same  idea  was  put  forward 
in  many  other  articles,  some  of  which  were  not  his  own  writing, 
though  he  gave  the  idea  and  the  lead.  The  essays  on  International 
Money  and  on  the  Depreciation  of  Silver  are  also  specimens  of 
what  he  contributed  in  this  way;  the  latter,  as  we  all  remember, 
having  a  distinct  effect  at  the  time  on  the  discussions  of  the  silver 
question.  His  leading  idea,  that  imports  into  India  would  be 
checked  and  exports  stimulated,  so  that  silver  would  again  be  more 
in  demand,  had  a  conspicuous  influence  in  arresting  hasty  action. 
Of  ideas  or  policies  embodied  in  articles,  and  which  have  not  since 
been  collected  into  books, — either  in  their  original  form,  as  in  the 
two  latter  books,  or  in  a  transfigured  and  improved  form,  as  in 
"Lombard  Street,"  —  I  should  be  disposed  to  mention  first  what  Bage- 
hot wrote  again  and  again,  or  caused  to  be  written,  about  lending 
money  to  imperfectly  civilized  foreign  states.  It  was  his  conspicu- 
ous honor  to  have  "spotted"  the  danger  of  these  loans  long  before 
the  public  were  sensible  of  it,  in  fact  almost  from  the  time  the 
loans  began;  and  in  spite  of  the  portentous  growth  of  the  system, 
which  nothing  seemed  to  check,  I  believe  he  really  mitigated  the 
evil,  arraying  the  sober  opinion  in  the  City  against  it.  Another 
conspicuous  service,  I  think,  was  in  resisting  the  bad  financial  pro- 
posals of  Mr.  Gladstone's  powerful  Government,  —  the  proposed 
imposition  of  the  match  tax,  the  proposed  repeal  or  modification  of 
the  railway  passenger  duty,  and  above  all  the  proposed  abolition  of 
the  income  tax,  which  latter  he  most  vehemently  opposed.  Gener- 
ally, he  was  a  useful  influence  in  criticizing  the  financial  proposals 


BAGEHOT  AS  AN   ECONOMIST. 


of  all  Governments,  so  liable  for  party  reasons  to  deviate  from  the 
straight  line;  but  his  resistance  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  income  tax 
was  especially  memorable.  Last  of  all  I  would  mention  his  con- 
spicuous resistance  to  the  purchase  of  the  Suez  Canal  shares.  Un- 
doubtedly, when  the  public  were  almost  universally  jubilant,  he 
did  much  to  '"take  the  gilt"  off  that  transaction,  and  encourage 
the  Liberal  party  to  criticize  it;  so  that  he  was  a  great  influence 
in  forming  opinion  at  the  time,  whatever  the  ultimate  verdict  of 
history  may  be.  I  do  not  think  anything  he  did  in  this  way  will 
compare  in  quality  with  the  work  in  the  "Lombard  Street  "or  the 
"Economic  Studies."  His  work  in  this  respect,  to  use  Mr.  Mutton's 
phrase,  was  that  of  the  least  part  of  him  ;  he  was  often  not  deeply 
interested  himself,  taking  it  only  as  "all  in  the  day's  work,"  to 
use  his  own  phrase:  but  what  he  did  was  none  the  less  consid- 
erable, enough  and  more  than  enough  to  account  for  his  authority 
and  reputation,  and  to  have  made  a  name  for  him  as  an  economist 
alone.  Even  here,  however,  he  succeeded  by  qualities  not  specially 
economic,  by  quickness  to  see  and  say  the  right  thing  because  his 
point  of  view  commanded  so  large  a  field. 

IT  is  time  for  me  to  bring  this  paper  to  a  close,  and  I  have 
only  one  or  two  things  to  add  by  way  of  conclusion.  If  my  ac- 
count be  correct,  a  very  exceptional  place  must  be  claimed  for 
Bagehot  as  an  economic  writer.  He  has  not  only  gained  rank 
amongst  the  economists  in  the  ordinary  plane  of  their  work,  but  in 
connecting  the  science  with  the  physical  philosophy  of  the  time, 
and  showing  how  the  new  ideas  modify  it,  in  resolving  conflicting 
views  by  a  higher  generalization  and  thus  clearing  away  prejudices 
which  impeded  the  study,  in  describing  the  features  of  the  eco- 
nomic age  of  the  world  and  the  special  features  of  the  English 
business  organization,  besides  attracting  people  to  the  study  by 
interesting  writing;  but  he  has  performed  one  of  those  leading 
services  which  entitle  him  to  foremost  rank  as  an  economic  writer 
—  to  a  place,  I  should  think,  in  the  succession  of  leading  authors 
along  with  those  he  has  himself  sketched.  Looking  at  the  science 
as  it  was  before  him,  and  as  it  appears  through  his  spectacles,  it 
certainly  seems  to  me  difficult  to  assign  him  too  high  a  place. 

In  one  respect,  also,  his  services,  I  believe,  will  prove  more  and 
more  valuable  as  time  goes  on,  though  I  doubt  if  he  was  fully  con- 
scious of  what  he  was  doing.  This  is  in  the  preparation  he  has 
made  for  the  statistical  development  of  the  science.  In  describing 
the  features  of  the  economic  age  accurately,  and  especially  in 
describing  the  working  of  economic  phenomena  in  the  mass  in 
VOL.  I-F 


IxXXii  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

business  societies  constituted  like  that  of  England  at  the  present 
time,  he  has  really  been  doing  preparatory  work  for  the  solution  of 
problems  which  can  only  be  solved  statistically.  All  that  relates  to 
the  bank  reserve,  to  the  increase  of  bank-note  circulation  at  certain  • 
seasons  or  in  certain  years,  to  the  succession  of  good  and  bad  years 
in  business,  to  the  tendency  of  money  to  be  dearer  at  one  season 
than  at  another  and  in  one  year  than  in  another,  to  the  special 
danger  of  panics  at  certain  times,  involve  statistical  considerations; 
and  without  being  strictly  a  statistician,  still  by  his  quantitative 
sense  Bagehot  has  given  an  idea  of  how  the  statistics  would  tell, 
and  has  prepared  the  way  for  the  more  exact  study.  In  so  doing 
he  has  also  helped  to  determine  more  definitely  the  scientific  char- 
acter of  economic  studies  themselves,  about  which  there  is  much 
vain  dispute.  Whatever  wrangling  there  may  be  as  to  giving  the 
name  of  science  to  other  branches  of  the  study,  there  can  at  least 
be  none  here.  In  describing  the  normal  phenomena  of  business 
societies,  people  are  describing  things  which  follow  each  other  in 
regular  sequence  and  which  have  a  vital  connection  with  each  other, 
and  where  prediction  is  therefore  possible;  while  the  description  is 
also  of  scientific  value  by  giving  the  means  of  quickly  ascertaining 
the  presence  of  disturbing,  that  is  of  abnormal,  influences.  As  it 
happens,  no  scientific  man  could  be  more  successful  in  prophecy 
than  was  Bagehot  himself.  His  predictions  of  the  future  course  of 
the  money  market  when  the  great  drain  of  specie  to  India  through 
the  cotton  famine  took  place,  and  more  lately  when  the  German 
drain  of  gold  began,  turned  out  to  be  exactly  true,  and  for  the 
reasons  which  he  assigned.  The  study  of  money-market  phenomena 
and  of  the  whole  phenomena  of  the  economic  age,  on  the  lines 
thus  laid  down,  must  lead  to  a  more  accurate  general  intelligence  of 
the  normal  course  of  things,  and  a  more  accurate  general  anticipa- 
tion of  the  effects  of  any  disturbing  cause.  Bagehot's  anticipations 
of  the  more  accurate  investigation  of  the  true  doctrine  of  popula- 
tion also  point  to  a  new  source  of  scientific  knowledge  which  is 
opening  out.  The  gift  of  prophecy  in  some  economic  matters  which 
Bagehot  possessed  may  perhaps  be  the  general  inheritance  of  another 
generation. 

I  have  already  hinted  at  the  infinite  regret  which  must  be  felt 
at  the  non-completion  of  the  programme  sketched  out  in  these 
"Economic  Studies."  Perhaps  I  ought  to  add  my  testimony  to  what 
Mr.  Button  has  said  of  the  premature  interruption  of  Bagehot's 
labors  by  death.  No  event  could  more  powerfully  suggest  the 
notion  of  a  life  beyond  life,  so  as  to  explain  the  mystery  of  so  fair 
a  work  being  left  incomplete.  Mentally  Bagehot  was  at  his  best 


BAGEHOT   AS  AN  ECONOMIST.  Ixxxiii 

when  he  died,  and  he  looked  forward  to  many  years  of  happy  toil, 
both  in  finishing  these  "Economic  Studies"  and  other  work  beyond. 
So  far  from  becoming  absorbed  in  economic  science  as  he  grew 
older,  though  his  later  writing  happened  to  be  almost  all  economic, 
Bagehot  to  the  last  gave  me  the  impression  of  only  passing  through 
one  mental  stage,  which  being  passed  through  he  would  again  leave 
political  economy  behind.  To  his  historical  and  descriptive  account 
of  English  political  economy  he  was  likely  enough  to  have  added 
a  history  of  political  ideas,  or  at  any  rate  some  other  work  of 
general  philosophy,  which  had  necessarily  more  attraction  for  him 
than  the  ordinary  topics  of  political  economy.  His  actual  achieve- 
ment in  political  philosophy  and  literature  was  very  great;  but  the 
writing  had  almost  all  been  the  work  of  about  fifteen  years  of  his 
life,  and  at  the  age  when  he  died  he  might  well  have  looked  for- 
ward to  other  fifteen  years  which  would  have  yielded  at  least  an 
equal  work  both  in  quantity  and  quality.  He  spoke  to  me  only  a 
few  weeks  before  he  died  of  the  difference  he  felt  in  his  power  of 
work;  of  his  being  able  to  produce  more  in  a  given  time  because 
he  knew  better  what  he  was  doing,  though  he  had  no  longer  the 
elasticity  of  youth  and  the  youthful  power  of  continuous  and  ex- 
hausting labor.  I  am  not  writing  all  this,  however,  to  indulge  in 
vain  regret,  but  as  some  excuse  for  claiming  a  higher  place  for 
Bagehot  than  what  those  who  did  not  know  him  may  readily  grant. 
The  world  must  perforce  judge  him  by  an  incomplete  record,  ex- 
tended as  that  record  is;  but  it  is  at  least  permissible  to  friends  to 
show  that  the  fragments  left  are  those  of  a  grand  building,  that 
the  design  went  much  farther  than  what  we  see,  and  that,  fine  and 
noble  as  the  work  is,  it  is  greatly  interesting  as  proving  how  much 
finer  and  nobler  the  whole  structure  would  have  been. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  ARTICLE  ON  "  OXFORD." 

(Prospective  fieview,   Vol.  viii.,  No.  xxxi.*) 

FATHER  NEWMAN  is  a  man  to  fail.  With  all  his  ability  and  inven- 
tion and  logical  accuracy,  there  is  generally  in  all  his  writings  some 
impossible  postulate,  some  incredible  axiom,  that  mars  the  whole. 
So  it  is  here  :  he  deduces  his  entire  theory  of  a  university  from 
what  we  had  always  understood  to  be  the  obsolete  derivation,  that 
it  is  to  teach  "universal  knowledge."  This  is  odd  enough:  we  are 
actually  to  receive  from  the  emissaries  of  the  pope  the  very  theory 
which  twenty  years  ago  was  in  vogue  among  certain  rather  advanced 
sectaries  of  the  Radical  philosophy.  A  man  of  some  wealth  and 
transactive  ability  sometimes  has  a  family;  he  is  struck  with  the 
importance  of  various  subjects.  He  says,  "There  is  Chemistry:  what 
progress  it  makes  day  by  day!  What  a  scheme  for  making  soap 
Dr.  Dirtihands  was  mentioning  yesterday !  —  my  son  must  know 
Chemistry.  And  there  is  French :  '  Commong  survatteel  ? '  —  my  son 
shall  know  French.  And  there  is  Physiology ;  what  an  interesting 
topic  the  human  frame  is!  We  are  always  having  diseases  we  can't 
account  for.  I  wonder  where  I  caught  that  cold  last  week  —  my 
son  shall  know  Physiology.  And  then,  too,  what  was  that  when 
I  felt  so  floored  the  other  morning  ?  I  remember  it  was  those  bar- 
rister fellows  that  were  for  me  against  the  Brewer's  Company,  and 
they  were  talking  of  the  late  Lord  Chancellor  and  his  always  giving 
things  to  his  relations  —  what's  called  'nepotism';  and  then  a  little 
red-headed  man,  who  was  very  quick  in  business,  said,  '  Certainly, 
certainly,  —  why,  he's  Nepos  himself ;'  and  then  everybody  laughed 
at  him,  and  I  laughed.  I  wonder  why  we  laughed  ?  It  is  very 
unpleasant  laughing  when  one  don't  know  the  reason.  I  fancy  it 
is  something  in  Latin  —  my  son  shall  know  Latin."  And  so  on 
through  all  the  range  of  the  sciences  ;  and  the  end  is,  that  the 
young  gentleman  is  sent  to  a  "seminary"  near  London,  where  every- 
thing is  taught,  according  to  the  Times,  "  without  corporal  penalties," 
whereat  he  learns  at  least  nothing.  Something  of  this  sort,  we 
learn,  is  the  Catholic  idea  of  a  college  :  universal  information  is  to 
be  diffused;  all  sciences,  "as  the  term  university  expresses,"  are 
to  be  taught;  everybody  is  to  be  set  to  learn  everything.  But  was 


*  This  paper  was  written  after  the  appointment  of  the  first  Commission  to 
inquire  into  the  Reform  of  Oxford  University  in  1852,  and  soon  after  the  publi- 
cation of  Dr.  Newman's  Lectures  on  "The  Idea  of  a  University  "  in  Dublin. 

( Ixxxv  ) 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


it  necessary  to  have  so  great  an  apparatus  for  so  small  a  work  ?  Is 
this  what  the  Catholic  Church  is  to  do  for  us  ?  to  build  new  lecture 
rooms,  to  overteach  a  few  pupils,  to  try  (and  fail)  to  induce  man- 
kind at  large  to  search  and  seek  for  universal  knowledge  ?  Why 
did  she  come  so  far  ?  We  could  do  that  for  ourselves. 

In  our  notion,  the  object  of  a  university  education  is,  to  train 
intellectual  men  for  the  pursuits  of  an  intellectual  life.  For  though 
education  by  training  or  reading  will  not  make  people  quicker  or 
cleverer  or  more  inventive,  yet  it  will  make  them  soberer.  A  man 
who  finds  out  for  himself  all  that  he  knows  is  rarely  remarkable  for 
calmness.  The  excitement  of  the  discovery  and  a  weak  fondness  for 
his  own  investigations  —  a  parental  inclination  to  believe  in  their 
excessive  superiority  —  combine  to  make  the  self-taught  and  original 
man  dogmatic,  decisive,  and  detestable.  He  comes  to  you  with  a 
notion  that  Noah  discarded  in  the  ark,  and  attracts  attention  to  it  as 
if  it  were  a  stupendous  novelty  of  his  own.  A  book-bred  man  rarely 
does  this;  he  knows  that  his  notions  are  old  notions,  that  his  favor- 
ite theories  are  the  rejected  axioms  of  long-deceased  people:  he  is 
too  well  aware  how  much  may  be  said  for  every  side  of  everything 
to  be  very  often  overweeningly  positive  on  any  point. 

It  is  of  immense  importance  that  there  should  be,  among  the 
more  opulent  and  comfortable  classes,  a  large  number  of  minds  trained 
by  early  discipline  to  this  habitual  restraint  and  sobriety.  The  very 
ignorance  of  such  people  is  better  than  the  best  knowledge  of  half 
mankind.  An  uneducated  man  has  no  notion  of  being  without 
an  opinion;  he  is  distinctly  aware  whether  Venus  is  inhabited,  and 
knows  as  well  as  Mr.  Cobden  what  is  to  be  found  in  all  the  works 
of  Thucydides:  but  his  opinionated  ignorance  is  rather  kept  in  check 
when  people  as  strong-headed  as  himself,  as  rich,  as  respectable,  and 
much  better  taught,  are  continually  avowing  that  they  don't  at  all 
know  any  of  the  points  on  which  he  is  ready  to  decide.  And  when 
those  who  are  careful  have  opinions,  they  are  in  general  able  to  bear 
the  temperate  discussion  of  them.  Education  cannot  insure  infallibil- 
ity, but  it  most  certainly  insures  deliberation  and  patience;  it  forms 
the  opinions  of  people  that  can  form  the  opinions  of  others. 

This,  too,  is  a  function  that  increases  in  difficulty  with  the  in- 
crease in  civilization.  As  society  goes  on,  life  becomes  more  com- 
plicated and  its  problems  more  difficult.  New  perplexities,  new 
temptations,  new  difficulties,  arise  with  new  circumstances  ;  every 
walk  in  life  is  clogged  with  tedious  difficulties,  and  thronged  with 
countless  competitors,  and  overrun  with  infinite  dangers.  The  moral 
problems,  the  political  problems,  the  social  problems,  the  religious 
problems,  require  a  greater  stress  of  understanding;  we  were  in 


OXFORD.  Ixxxvii 

simple  addition,  we  are  in  the  differential  calculus.  Take  the  case 
of  politics  in  this  country  now,  and  as  it  was  a  century  and  a  half 
ago.  In  Queen  Anne's  time  the  question  was,  whether  the  Pre- 
tender should  be  king  [and]  whether  Popery  should  be  the  religion 
of  the  state,  and  that  was  nearly  all  :  on  so  large  an  issue,  very 
inferior  and  illiterate  minds  were  quite  competent  to  form  a  sound 
judgment.  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  for  example,  who  believed  in 
witchcraft,  and  was  not  a  college  man,  was  quite  able  to  reject  the 
pope  and  receive  the  Queen — "God  bless  her."  But  how  the  poor 
old  gentleman  would  have  been  confounded  in  the  present  day  ! 
"What  would  he  have  thought  of  Free  Trade,  Protectionism,  and 
Caucasian  Christianity  ?  He  would,  we  fear,  have  reflected  in  this 
wise  on  the  General  Election  : — "You  see,  though  I  can't  quite  tell 
(for  I  am  getting  old)  what  Lord  Derby  has  done  with  all  his  old 
principles,  I  shall  vote  for  young  John  Rising,  who  intends  to  sup- 
port him,  —  for  you  know  his  father,  Sir  John,  was  my  very  old 
friend,  and  knew  more  of  fox-hunting  than  any  one  in  Worcestershire, 
notwithstanding  some  were  so  foolish  as  to  think  me  his  equal  ; 
and  though  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  is  said  in  London  to 
be  a  Jew,  I  could  not  deny  but  the  poor  in  my  county  was  more 
comfortable  than  ever."  This  was  good  influential  reasoning  in 
the  first  year  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  it  won't  do  now,  — 
we  want  men  to  get  up  facts,  weigh  principles,  suggest  illustrations, 
appreciate  arguments  ;  and  this  is  the  use  of  learning. 

So  too  in  religion  :  how  differently  are  we  placed  nowadays,  in 
this  Babel  of  sects  and  the  deluge  of  criticism,  from  the  old  times 
when  the  choice  was  between  two  or  three  distinct  creeds,  depend- 
ing on  common  and  conceded  postulates,  and  differing  only  in  the 
respective  correctness  of  a  few  not  too  complicated  deductions  ! 
Now  that  the  postulates  are  gone,  who  is  there  that  can  estimate 
the  insuperable  task  of  (as  it  is  phrased)  making  a  religion  ?  And 
in  the  minor  subjects  of  taste  and  refinement,  with  the  growth  of 
literature,  the  increase  of  luxury,  and  the  advent  of  aesthetics,  who 
can  too  highly  estimate  the  difficulty  of  reviewing  works  of  art, 
and  criticizing  styles,  and  comprehending  the  German  speculations  ? 
And  in  the  practical  concerns  of  life,  though  a  prolonged  education 
rather  interferes  than  otherwise  with  a  perfect  and  instinctive  mas- 
tery of  a  narrow  department,  though  it  disqualifies  men  for  special 
or  mechanical  labor  and  the  petty  habits  of  a  confined  routine, — yet 
for  affairs  on  a  considerable  scale,  for  a  general  estimate  on  general 
probabilities,  and  for  changing  the  hand  and  the  mind  from  one 
species  of  pursuit  to  another,  a  carefully  formed  mind  and  a  large 
foundation  of  diversified  knowledge  are  indisputably  wonderful  and 
all  but  indispensable  aids.  Men  who  blindly  and  instinctively  follow 


IxXXVlii       THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

out  and  feel  after  the  minute  details  of  a  single  occupation,  gener- 
ally know  but  that  one,  and  can  learn  no  other.  In  the  increasing 
and  multiplying  wealth  of  the  world,  in  the  various  and  ever-vary- 
ing ramifications  of  human  industry,  it  becomes  necessary  that  some 
people  should  comprehend  the  general  plan,  while  others  elaborate 
the  special  minutiae  ;  and  it  is  lucky  that  the  very  wealth  which, 
by  its  superabundance  and  the  complexity  of  its  nature,  renders 
more  than  anything  else  all  this  enlargement  of  knowledge  neces- 
sary, also  by  getting  together  in  single  hands  secures  the  easy 
conditions,  the  pecuniary  resources,  and  the  youthful  leisure  that 
are  the  necessary  prerequisites  for  its  extensive  diffusion. 

A  certain  speechlessness  is  still  a  part  of  the  [Oxford]  character. 
"You  will,"  says  Hazlitt,  "hear  more  good  things  in  one  day  on 
the  top  of  the  coach,  going  or  coming  from  Oxford,  than  in  one 
year  from  all  the  residents  in  that  learned  seminary."  A  slightly 
excitable  lady  was  once  asked  within  our  hearing  what  she  thought 
of  the  literati  of  Oxford  :  she  said,  "They  were  so  stupid  I  could 
strike  them,"  But  this  is  not  quite  conclusive.  It  is  not  good  that 
every  one  should  be  loquacious  or  excitable  or  original  :  some  must 
listen  if  it  is  meant  that  they  should  understand.  Particularly  the 
custom  is  to  refrain  from  speaking  on  their  own  pursuits.  There 
is  some  story  of  a  head  of  a  house  who  was  presented  to  Napoleon 
after  the  peace  of  Amiens,  and  was  asked  on  his  return  what  was 
his  opinion  of  the  French  Emperor.  "Sir,"  replied  the  dignitary, 
"you  see  at  once  that  he  is  not  a  university  man,  —  he  talks  about 
the  classics.'11  Such  was  his  opinion. 

In  moral  and  political  opinions  the  Oxford  man  is  quite  as  de- 
fined. Mr.  Gladstone,  to  take  the  most  marked  and  decisive  ex- 
ample, is  obviously  and  utterly  different  from  what  he  would  have 
been  if  educated  anywhere  else.  He  is  the  only  considerable  polit- 
ical Englishman  who  has  undergone  what  can,  even  by  courtesy,  be 
called  a  philosophical  training.  There  is  about  him,  and  in  all  his 
writings  and  in  all  his  speeches,  a  certain  desire  for  principle,  a 
wish  to  have  an  ultimatum,  a  reason,  an  axiom  from  which  and  to 
which  the  intellectual  effort  may  start  and  be  referred.  His  first 
principles  are  rarely  ours  ;  we  may  often  think  them  obscure,  some- 
times incomplete,  occasionally  quite  false  :  but  we  cannot  deny  that 
they  are  the  result  of  distinct  thought  with  disciplined  faculties 
upon  adequate  data,  of  a  careful  and  dispassionate  consideration 
of  all  the  objections  which  occurred,  whether  easy  or  insuperable, 
trifling  or  severe.  How  Dr.  Arnold  estimates  this  training  —  still 
conveyed  from  the  same  text-book  as  in  Chaucer's  time  —  may  be 


OXFORD.  Ixxxix 

read  in  a  hundred  passages  of  his  letters  and  works.  "We  have 
been  reading,"  says  he,  speaking  of  Aristotle,  "some  of  the  Rhetoric 
in  the  sixth  form  this  half-year  ;  and  its  immense  value  struck  me 
again  so  forcibly  that  I  could  not  consent  to  send  my  son  to  a 
university  where  he  would  lose  it  altogether,  and  where  his  whole 
studies  would  be  formal  merely  and  not  real,  —  either  mathe- 
matics or  philology,  with  nothing  answering  to  the  Aristotle  and 
Thucydides  of  Oxford."  And  again:  —  "If  one  might  wish  for 
impossibilities,  I  might  then  wish  that  my  children  might  be  well 
versed  in  physical  science,  but  in  due  subordination  to  the  fullness 
and  freshness  of  their  knowledge  on  all  subjects.  This,  however,  I 
believe  cannot  be  ;  and  physical  science,  if  studied  at  all,  seems  too 
great  to  be  studied  fv  napepyu  \  wherefore,  rather  than  have  it  the 
principal  thing  in  my  son's  mind,  I  would  gladly  have  him  think 
that  the  sun  went  round  th^e  earth  and  that  the  stars  were  so 
many  spangles  set  in  the  firmament."  And  he  acted  on  his  theory. 
"You  may  believe,"  he  remarks  with  respect  to  the  London  Uni- 
versity, "that  I  have  not  forgotten  the  dear  old  Stagyrite  in  our 
examinations,  and  I  hope  that  he  will  be  construed  and  discussed 
in  Somerset  House  as  well  as  in  the  schools." 

In  other  Oxford  men  this  is  as  remarkable.  You  cannot  open 
the  writings  of  the  most  dissimilar  among  them  without  being 
struck  by  the  thoughtful  element  which  they  have  in  common. 
There  is  a  perpetual  and  often  quite  unconscious  employment  of 
expressions  and  illustrations  derived  from  the  Greek,  but  especially 
from  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  a  certain  accuracy  in  the  express- 
ion of  principles,  and  a  certain  keen  deductiveness  of  understand- 
ing, which  distinguish  the  works  of  men  whom  nature  markedly 
and  of  set  purpose  discriminated  from  each  other  ;  and  this  lasts 
their  lifetime.  Coleridge  used  to  say  that  if  you  took  up  a  philo- 
sophical German  writer,  no  matter  whether  second-rate  or  first-rate 
or  fourth-rate,  you  would  be  struck  with  a  certain  carefulness  of 
tone,  a  curious  and  guarded  discrimination  in  the  use  of  exact 
terms,  a  foreseeing  of  objections,  and  so  on,  which  would  induce 
you  to  remark,  "Really,  this  writer  is  a  philosopher;"  whereas  in 
fact  it  was  only  that  the  general  style  of  philosophical  thought  was 
so  diffused  in  Germany,  that  any  man  of  fair  ability,  fair  industrv, 
and  fair  power  of  imitation  could  easily  acquire  and  affect  it. 
Something  of  the  same  sort  seems  to  exist  in  the  very  atmosphere 
of  Oxford ;  for  if  you  turn  even  from  such  great  writers  as  Dr. 
Whewell,  Sir  John  Herschel,  or  Mr.  Mill,  to  the  writings  of  even 
an  inferior  man  trained  on  the  characteristically  Oxford  system, 
you  will  feel  at  once  that  although  you  may  and  will  lose- in  vigor 


XC        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  originality,  in  variety  of  knowledge,  in  brilliancy  of  illustration, 
in  liveliness  of  mind,  yet  you  will  gain  in  mere  speculativeness. 
What  theories  there  are,  will  be  expressed,  as  theories  should  be, 
with  calmness,  with  accuracy,  with  dullness,  with  carefulness,  with 
an  anticipation  of  objections,  after  a  conversancy  with  the  ideas  of 
what  philosophers  have  preceded  them. 

The  fact  is,  that  Oxford  men  want  Evaro^ia,  —  they  want  intui- 
tiveness.  From  a  defect  of  liveliness,  from  an  over-caution  of  under- 
standing, they  have  not  the  Ta%b  TI,  the  happy  facility  which  takes 
hold  at  once  and  forever  of  the  right  point  or  the  right  questions 
at  the  right  moment.  There  is  often  not  spring  enough  in  the 
nature  of  such  a  man  :  he  can  go  well  in  the  highroad  of  learn- 
ing, but  he  won't  do  for  the  cross-country  exercise  of  human  life. 
—  it  puts  him  out.  He  does  not  like  that  there  should  be  virtues 
not  in  Aristotle's  list,  and  it  is  impossible  to  convince  him  that 
there  is  anything  which  is  not  dreamed  of  in  his  philosophy.  Give 
him  time  and  he  will  generally  come  right  ;  but  in  this  hasty 
world  who  can  have  time  ?  As  the  best  speaker  in  a  concourse  of 
men  is  the  man  who  has  the  best  sayings  there  ready,  so  in  action 
we  must  be  able  to  act  wisely  at  once,  or  else  we  must  either  do 
nothing  or  act  unwisely. 

In  this  respect  the  Cambridge  men  do  better.  A  hard  and 
mathematical  Johnian  is  perhaps  perfectly  prepared  for  every  ab- 
stract difficulty  of  active  life.  He  may  want  taste  and  discrimina- 
tion, and  judgment  in  character,  and  skill  in  dealing  with  men,  or  art 
in  persuading  them  ;  but  in  the  bare  application  of  mere  principles, 
in  the  thorough  mastery  of  appalling  facts,  in  the  technical  manipu- 
lations —  to  speak  absurdly  —  of  any  intellectual  pursuit,  according 
at  least  to  our  observation,  he  will  never  fail.  Such  men  generally 
see  a  thing  in  the  right  light  at  first;  and  if  they  once  get  right, 
all  the  oratory  which  ever  was  or  can  be,  all  the  eloquence  of  a 
private  tutor,  all  the  pathos  of  senior  fellow[s],  will  never  induce 
them  to  swerve  from  their  pragmatical  honesty  or  to  abate  one  jot 
of  clear  intellectual  certainty  in  their  dogmatic  conviction.  But 
they  fail  even  in  intellectual  pursuits  when  the  finer  faculties  are 
required  :  they  are  good  actuaries  but  bad  metaphysicians  ;  when 
they  write  books  on  thoughtful  subjects,  they  make  blunders  with- 
out end.  Mr.  Mill,  we  believe,  somewhere  says  of  the  last  genera- 
tion of  eminent  Cambridge  men,  that  he  never  heard  an  argument 
from  them  which  was  worth  anything  ;  and  though  this  be  a  trifle 
contemptuous,  yet  it  is  certain  that  of  late  the  amount  of  general 
thought  on  general  subjects  for  which  we  are  indebted  to  Cam- 
bridge is  immensely  less  than  what  we  owe  to  Oxford. 


OXFORD.  XC1 

Is  not  this  really  good  ?  We  asked  so  long  ago  that  no  reader 
can  be  asked  to  remember  it,  whether  there  was  not  something  very 
singular  in  the  old  English  idea  that  the  educational  systems  of 
both  the  two  old  universities  were  both  perfect.  Like  most  odd 
and  old  ideas,  it  has  much  truth. '  Is  it  not  perhaps  better  that  we 
should  have  one  university  which  practically  devotes  itself  mainly 
to  the  culture  of  thought,  and  another  which  devotes  itself  princi- 
pally to  the  training  men  for  the  more  difficult  species  of  intellect- 
ual action  ?  These  are  the  two  duties  of  a  university,  as  we  showed 
just  now  ;  it  is  perhaps  good  that  they  should  be  kept  in  a  cer- 
tain measure  separate.  Each  fulfills  its  own  task  rather  better  if  it 
aim  at  one  mainly,  than  if  it  aspire  to  both  equally.  Besides,  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  each  selects  out  of  the  general  society  exactly 
those  who  are  thought  to  be  best  fitted  to  excel  in  the  require- 
ments and  studies  which  constitute  its  test  and  its  training.  A 
mathematician  —  the  son  perhaps  of  a  blacksmith  —  goes  to  St. 
John's  ;  the  son  of  a  country  vicar,  with  a  taste  for  moral  subjects 
and  the  classics,  is  most  properly  dispatched  to  Oxford.  Each  is 
well  trained,  —  the  first  for  the  conveyancer's  chambers,  the  second 
for  a  rural  rectory. 

In  two  points  the  two  universities  coincide, — selecting  two  ele- 
ments which  we  believe  to  be  quite  necessary  for  the  real  education 
of  an  intellectual  Englishman  :  they  both  teach  a  compact  system 
of  learning.  If  we  were  teaching  a  Frenchman  who  is  versatile,  or 
an  old  Athenian  who  was  versatility  itself,  this  might  not  be  of 
so  great  importance  ;  perhaps  it  would  not  even  be  possible,  for  we 
question  whether  those  unstable  and  changeable  organizations  could 
be  kept  resolutely  to  a  narrow  pursuit.  With  the  Englishman  it 
is  different.  His  intelligence  is  slow  and  stubborn  and  sure ;  his 
memory,  though  retentive,  is  not  facile  :  it  is  certain  therefore  that 
if  you  bother  him  with  many  things,  he  will  learn  none  ;  if  you 
do  not  allow  him  to  become,  as  he  thinks,  possessed  of  some  one 
acquisition,  you  will  discontent  him  and  he  will  leave  you.  "It 
would  be  well,"  so  says  a  thoughtful  writer,*  "to  impress  on  the 
young  men  of  the  present  day  the  value  of  ignorance,  as  well  as 
of  knowledge  ;  to  give  them  fortitude  and  courage  enough  to  ac- 
knowledge that  there  are  books  which  they  have  not  read  and 
sciences  which  they  do  not  wish  to  learn;  and  to  make  them  feel 
that  one  of  the  very  greatest  defects  in  a  mind  is  want  of  unity  of 
purpose,  and  that  everything  which  betrays  this  betrays  also  want 
of  resolution  and  energy."  For  if  this  be  not  learnt  easily  and 
early,  it  will  be  learned  painfully  and  late.  One  by  one,  day  by 


*S«wcll  on  Plato,  page  125. 


XCii  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

day,  the  world  will  strip  off  the  pretensions  and  false  assumptions 
which  we  may  put  forth,  no  matter  how  great  they  be.  What  do 
you  do  for  me  ?  she  asks  ;  and  she  will  require  a  solid  answer.  It 
has  been  a  great  happiness  to  many  that  two  seats  of  national 
learning  have  consciously  or  unconsciously  taken  each  a  defined 
course  and  adopted  a  rigid  system  :  the  one  by  severe  training  in 
philosophers  and  historians,  to  teach  men  what  has  been  thought; 
the  other  by  a  discipline  in  the  technicalities  of  study,  to  prepare 
men  for  the  like  technicalities  of  abstruser  action. 

The  other  point  of  substantial  unanimity  between  Oxford  and 
Cambridge  is  the  collegiate  system.  It  is  well  observed  by  a  gen- 
tleman who  has  given  evidence,  that  this  also  is  suitable  to  the 
national  character.  There  is  nothing  for  young  men  like  being 
thrown  into  close  neighborhood  with  young  men  :  it  is  the  age  of 
friendship,  and  every  encouragement  should  be  given,  every  oppor- 
tunity enlarged  for  it.  Take  an  uncollegiate  Englishman,  and  you 
will  generally  find  that  he  has  no  friends:  he  has  not  the  habit. 
He  has  his  family,  his  business,  his  acquaintances,  and  these  occupy 
his  time.  He  has  not',  been  thrown  during  the  breathing  time 
of  human  life  into  close  connection  with  those  who  are  also  beginning 
or  thinking  of  beginning  to  enter  on  its  labors.  School  friendships 
are  childish;  "after-life"  rarely  brings  many:  it  is  in  youth  alone 
that  we  can  engrave  deep  and  wise  friendships  on  our  close  and 
stubborn  texture.  If  there  be  romance  in  them,  it  is  a  romance 
which  few  would  tear  aside. 

Of  course  also  the  college  system,  quite  beside  the  labors  of 
Tutors  and  Fellows,  mainly  aids  in  the  work  of  education.  All 
that  "pastors  and  masters"  can  teach  young  people  is  as  nothing 
when  compared  with  what  young  people  can't  help  teaching  one 
another.  Man  made  the  school,  God  the  play-ground.  He  did 
not  leave  children  dependent  on  the  dreams  of  parents  or  the  ped- 
antry of  tutors.  Before  letters  were  invented,  or  books  were,  or 
governesses  discovered,  the  neighbors'  children,  the  outdoor  life, 
the  fists  and  the  wrestling  sinews,  the  old  games  (the  oldest  things 
in  the  world),  the  bare  hill  and  the  clear  river,  —  these  were  educa- 
tion; and  now,  though  Xenophon  and  sums  be  come,  these  are  and 
remain.  Horses  and  marbles,  the  knot  of  boys  beside  the  school- 
boy fire,  the  hard  blows  given  and  the  harder  ones  received, — these 
educate  mankind.  So  too  in  youth  :  the  real  plastic  energy  is  not 
in  tutors  or  lectures  or  in  books  "got  up,"  but  in  Wordsworth 
and  Shelley  ;  in  the  books  that  all  read  because  all  like,  in  what 
all  talk  of  because  all  are  interested,  in  the  argumentative  walk  or 
disputatious  lounge  ;  in  the  impact  of  young  thought  upon  young 


OXFORD.  XC111 

thought,  of  fresh  thought  on  fresh  thought,  of  hot  thought  on  hot 
thought  ;  in  mirth  and  refutation,  in  ridicule  and  laughter  :  for 
these  are  the  free  play  of  the  natural  mind,  and  these  cannot  be 
got  without  a  college. 

It  must  be  recollected  that  the  theological  division  of  the  Eng- 
lish people  corresponds,  though  very  roughly,  with  a  social  division. 
Nonconformists  differ  much  from  Conformists  :  their  habits  are 
different,  their  manners  are  different,  their  ethics  are  different.  A 
Unitarian  marries  a  wife,  and  turns  banker  ;  his  son  is  made  a 
lord,  and  turns  to  the  Church  :  sic  itur  ad  astra.  So  subtle  and  so 
strong  are  the  influences  of  life  and  society,  of  rank  and  homage 
and  luxury,  so  feeble  the  strength  of  loose  opinion,  that  few 
families  resist  the  former  long  ;  hereditary  wealth,  in  a  generation 
or  two,  very  conscientiously  retreats  to  the  religion  of  the  wealthy. 
All  this  was  quite  forgotten  at  the  establishment  of  the  London 
University.  Lord  Brougham  is  accustomed  to  describe  the  expecta- 
tions of  thronged  halls  and  eager  students  and  intense  and  ceaseless 
study  ;  and  the  astonishment  of  the  promoters  at  the  moderate 
number  and  calm  demeanor  and  brief  sojourn  of  those  who  re- 
sponded to  their  call.  Nor  is  the  case  altered  now  :  the  expanse  of 
Gower  Street  will  not  emulate  the  slopes  of  St.  Genevieve,  nor 
will  De  Morgan  be  followed  like  Abelard.  The  number  of  Non- 
conformists who  desire  to  give  their  sons  what  can,  in  the  English 
use  of  the  term,  be  called  a  "university  education,"  is  not  very  con- 
siderable ;  nor,  according  to  the  better  authorities,  does  it  increase. 
They  do  not  design  their  sons  in  general  for  an  intellectual  life,  for 
the  learned  professions,  for  business  on  a  large  scale  or  of  a  varied 
kind  ;  they  do  not  wish  their  sons  to  form  aristocratic  connections  : 
but  to  be  solicitors,  attorneys,  merchants,  in  a  patient  and  useful 
way.  For  this,  they  think  —  and  most  likely  they  think  rightly  — 
that  twenty  years  of  life  are  quite  an  adequate  preparation  ;  they 
believe  that  more  would,  in  most  cases,  interfere  with  the  prac- 
ticed sagacity,  the  moderate  habits,  the  simple  wants,  the  routine 
inclinations,  which  are  essential  to  the  humbler  sorts  of  practical 
occupation.  Open,  therefore,  the  older  universities  though  you  may, 
you  will  not  practically  increase  or  materially  change  the  class  who 
will  resort  to  them  ;  the  Dissenters  in  Oxford  will  ever  be  but  a 
small,  a  feeble,  an  immaterial,  though  certainly  a  respectable  and  per- 
haps an  erudite  minority.  The  English  Catholics  might  be  a  more 
numerous  —  as  we  suspect  they  are  in  Oxford  opinion  a  far  more 
formidable  —  faction  :  a  Catholic  Hall,  we  can  believe,  would  really 
be  a  nuisance  in  Oxford  :  yet  even  this,  we  imagine,  should  be 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 


boldly  encountered,  —  it  would  become  much  less  fearful  in  a  very 
few  years.  The  English  leanings  and  prejudices  are  so  contrary 
to  Romanism  that  it  is  only  the  semblance  of  persecution  and  the 
fortuitous  opportunities  of  recent  years  which  have  occasioned  its 
recent  prominence.  Would  not  the  Tractarian  movement  have  come 
to  a  point  sooner,  have  gained  less  strength,  have  effected  less  for 
the  Roman  Church,  if  the  Oxford  men  had  from  early  youth  seen 
exactly  what  Catholicism  was  ?  Familiarity  will  spoil  romance  :  the 
charm  of  Romanism  is  its  mystery.  But  anyhow,  if  what  has  been 
said  be  in  the  least  true,  —  if  Oxford  is,  as  we  have  hinted,  to 
educate  our  thinkers,  —  how  absurd  to  train  them  in  ignorance  of 
what  is  !  how  peculiarly  foolish  to  deny  them  the  instruction  of  asso- 
ciating with  people  formed  in  other  disciplines  and  bred  in  other 
faiths,  —  the  only  sure  mode  of  comprehending  those  disciplines  and 
estimating  those  faiths  !  how  wretched  to  make  them  say  exactly 
beforehand  what  they  will  believe,  and  that  with  an  accuracy 
which  hardly  any  cultivated  man  would  like  to  apply  even  to  his 
most  elaborate  or  mature  speculations!  What  wonder  if  this  ends 
in  the  common  doctrine  that  the  Articles  are  "forms  of  thought," 
irremediable  categories  of  the  understanding,  —  certain  by  nature,  as 
clear  as  if  they  were  themselves  revealed  ? 

Lastly,  Oxford  has  vexed  the  English  people  :  she  has  crossed 
their  one  speculative  Affection,  she  has  encountered  their  one  specu- 
lative Hatred.  So  often  as  a  Tractarian  clergyman  enters  a  village, 
and  immediately  there  is  a  question  of  candlesticks  and  crosses  and 
rood-lofts  and  piscinae,  —  immediately  people  mutter,  "Why,  that  is 
Oxford  !  "  More  than  that  :  a  hundred  educated  men  (as  Roman- 
ists boast),  with  her  honors  to  their  names  and  her  token  on  their 
faces  and  her  teaching  on  their  minds,  have  deserted  to  the  enemy 
of  England.  This  can  not  be  answered.  These  people  are  ever 
busy;  their  names  are  daily  in  the  papers  ;  they  visit  out-of-the- 
way  places  ;  they  are  gazed  at  in  the  quietest  towns  :  and  wherever 
one  of  the  grave  figures  passes,  with  a  dark  dress  and  a  pale  face 
and  an  Oxonian  caution,  he  leaves  an  impression,  —  the  system 
which  trained  Mm  must  be  bad.  Such  is  our  axiom.  Tell  an 
Englishman  that  a  building  is  without  use,  and  he  will  stare  ; 
that  it  is  illiberal,  and  he  will  survey  it  ;  that  it  teaches  Aristotle, 
and  he  will  seem  perplexed  ;  that  it  don't  teach  science,  and  he 
won't  mind  :  but  only  hint  that  it  is  the  pope,  and  he  will  arise 
and  burn  it  to  the  ground.  Some  one  has  said  this  concerning 
Oxford  ;  so  let  her  be  wise.  Without  are  fightings,  within  are 
fears. 


LIST  OF  ALTEKATIOim 

EXCLUSIVE    OF     BRACKETED     ADDITIONS    AND     OF     CHANGES    TO    WHICH 
ATTENTION    IS    CALLED    IN    FOOT-NOTES. 


Page     8,  li 

ne  32- 

26, 

'    30- 

38, 

'     13- 

44, 

'    21- 

72, 

'      5- 

93, 

'    32- 

96, 

'    12- 

118, 

'    37 

151, 

'       1- 

190, 

'    32- 

266, 

'      3, 

301, 

'     10- 

324, 

'    20- 

417, 

'    36- 

FIRST  VOLUME. 

"seem"  for  "seemed." 

"  was  "  for  "  were." 

"it"  added  after  "have." 

"  of"  added  before  "whom." 

"is"  for  "are." 

"characters"  for  "character." 

"was"  for  "were." 
—  "to  heed"  for  "to  have  heeded." 
-"the"  added  before  "polished." 

-  "from  "  for  "  to." 

4,  5  — "are,"  "them,"  ''them,"  for  "is,"  "it,"  "it.' 

-  "as"  for  "like." 

-"to  find"  for  "to  have  found." 
-"live"  for  "lived." 

SECOND  VOLUME. 

Page   51,  line  21 —  "an"  for  "and." 
123,     "      2— "their"  for  "its." 
130,     "    28  — "of  either"  for  "either  of." 
220,     "    31  — "be"  for  "have  been." 
299,     "    16- "who"  for  "whom." 

THIRD  VOLUME. 
Page     5,  line    9— "are"  for  "is." 

FOURTH  VOLUME. 

Page     5,  line    6 — "was"  for  "is."    • 

5,     "    26 — "palpable"  and  "impalpable"  transposed. 
12,     "      3  —  "  without  formally  "  for  "formally  without." 


26, 
30, 
35, 

61, 

64, 

65, 

67, 

88, 

136, 

138, 

139, 


16 — "has"  for  "have.' 
9 — "hope"  for  "hoped." 
11  —  "legislature"  for  "legislative." 
21 — "are"  for  "were." 
28 — "separable"  for  "inseparable." 
16 — "Finance"  for  "Financial." 
27 — "legislature"  for  "legislative." 
19 — "arrest"  for  "assist." 
34— "-dence"  for  "-dent." 
35  —  "chose"  for  "choose." 
31,  32— "does"  for  "did"  in  each. 
15 — "their"  for  "its." 


(xcv) 


XCV1 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


Page  1(58,  line  15—  "creditor"  for  "debtor." 

181, 

'    15  — 

•it"  for  "them." 

184, 

'    11  — 

'with  titles"  for  "with  the  titles." 

191, 

'    32  — 

'its"  for  "their." 

193, 

'    21  — 

'is"  for  "was." 

239, 

'      9  — 

'yourselves"  for  "yourself." 

243, 

'    22— 

'  attend  "  for  "  attended.  " 

251, 

'    12— 

'was"  for  "were." 

263, 

'    15  — 

'shall"  for  "should." 

306, 

'    30  — 

'is"  for  "was." 

it 

'    32— 

'provides"  for  "provided." 

309, 

'    26  — 

'should"  for  "shall." 

324, 

'    21  — 

'that"  canceled  before  "those." 

334, 

'    29— 

'or"  for  "and." 

355, 

'    15  — 

'than"  for  "that." 

356, 

'    28  — 

'it  is"  for  "they  are." 

375, 

'    38— 

'in"  canceled  before  "the." 

388,     "    34— 

'be"  for  "have  been." 

391, 

'      3  — 

'place"  for  "have  placed." 

406,     "      5  — 

"dignities"  for  "dignitaries." 

441,     "    12  — 

'polity"  and  "no  polity"  transposed,  comma  put  before 

instead  of  after  "distinct." 

442,     "      7,  21,  27  —  "polities"  for  "politics"  in  each. 

445, 

'      4  — 

"the"  canceled  before  "hereditary." 

448, 

'    16— 

"which"  for  "who." 

472,     "    12  — 

"hidden"  for  "hid." 

476, 

'    31  — 

"this"  for  "these." 

513, 

'    31  — 

'their"  for  "his." 

515,    "    14  — 

'have  been"  for  "be." 

519, 

'    10  — 

'have  been"  for  "be." 

524, 

'    24  — 

'or"  canceled  before  "had." 

525, 

'      2— 

'have"  for  "had." 

526, 

'    33  — 

'  was"  for  "is." 

530, 

'     17  — 

"are"  for  "is." 

it 

'    39  — 

"or"  for  "and." 

538, 

'    16  — 

"so  "  for  "how." 

561, 

'    11  — 

"or"  for  "and." 

563, 

'    31  — 

"polities  of"  for  "politics  or." 

587,     "    11  — 

"were  "  for  "are." 

FIFTH  VOLUME. 

Page  71,  line  30—  "which"  for  "who." 

86, 

"    26— 

"were"  for  "was." 

112, 

"    16  — 

'which  (at"  for  "(which  at." 

120, 

"    25  — 

'  maintain  "  for  "  have  maintained." 

" 

"    26— 

'replenish"  for  "have  replenished." 

136, 

"    27  — 

'knows"  for  "knew." 

240, 

"    20  — 

'spoke"  for  "spake." 

290, 

"      5  — 

'shall"  for  "should." 

297, 

"      5  — 

'money  lender"  for  "money  lenders." 

353, 

"      7  — 

'are  "  for  "were." 

359, 

"    22  — 

'exist"  for  "exists." 

377, 

"    31  — 

"are  "  for  "is." 

430, 

"    21  — 

"their"  for  "his." 

526, 

"      2  — 

"adopt"  for  "have  adopted." 

631, 

"      1  — 

"is"  for  "are." 

LITERARY  STUDIES. 


THE  FIRST  EDINBURGH  BEVIEWERS* 

(1855.) 

IT  is  odd  to  hear  that  the  Edinburgh  Review  was  once 
thought  an  incendiary  publication.  A  young  gener- 
ation, which  has  always  regarded  the  appearance  of 
that  periodical  as  a  grave  constitutional  event  (and 
been  told  that  its  composition  is  intrusted  to  Privy 
Councilors  only),  can  scarcely  believe  that  once,  grave 
gentlemen  kicked  it  out  of  doors ;  \  that  the  dignified 
classes  murmured  at  ' '  those  young  men  "  starting  such 
views,  abetting  such  tendencies,  using  such  express- 
ions;  that  aged  men  said,  "Very  clever,  but  not  at 
all  sound."  Venerable  men,  too,  exaggerate.  People 
say  the  Review  was  planned  in  a  garret ;  \  but  this  is 

*A  Memoir  of  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith.  By  his  Daughter,  Lady  Holland. 
With  a  Selection  from  his  Letters.  Edited  by  Mrs.  Austin.  2  vols.  Longmans. 

Lord  Jeffrey's  Contributions  to  the  Edinburgh  Review.  A  New  Edition,  in 
one  Volume.  Longmans. 

Lord  Brougham's  Collected  Works.  Vols.  i..  ii.,  iii.  Lives  of  Philosophers 
of  the  Reign  of  George  III.  Lives  of  Men  of  Letters  of  the  Reign  of  George 
III.  Historical  Sketches  of  the  Statesmen  who  nourished  in  the  Reign  of 
George  III.  Griffin. 

The  Rev.  Sydney  Smith's  Miscellaneous  Works,  including  his  Contribu- 
tions to  the  Edinburgh  Review.  Longmans. 

tThe  Earl  of  Buchan,  a  fanatical  Tory  Scotchman,  had  the  number  for 
October,  1808  (containing  Jeffrey's  article  on  Don  Cevallos,  which  caused 
Scott  to  sever  his  connection  with  the  Edinburgh  and  led  to  the  foundation 
of  the  Quarterly),  laid  on  the  floor  of  the  lobby  in  his  Edinburgh  house  and 
Jhe  front  door  opened,  and  then  solemnly  kicked  it  into  the  street.  See 
Lord  Cockburn's  "Life  of  Jeffrey,"  Vol.  i,  page  151,  note.  —  ED. 

t  A  rather  intense  expression,  even  though  Jeffrey  himself  calls  it  "the 
dear  little  Lawnmarket  garret."  Jeffrey  was  poor,  but  many  flue  people 
lived  in  anything  but  fine  quarters  in  old  Edinburgh.  —  ED. 

VOL.  I.  —  1  (  1  ) 


2  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

incredible.  Merely  to  take  such  a  work  into  a  garret 
would  be  inconsistent  with  propriety;  and  the  tale 
that  the  original  conception,  the  pure  idea  to  which 
each  number  is  a  quarterly  aspiration,  ever  was  in 
a  garret,  is  the  evident  fiction  of  reminiscent  age, 
striving  and  failing  to  remember.  * 

Review  writing  is  one  of  the  features  of  modern 
literature :  many  able  men  really  give  themselves  up 
to  it.  Comments  on  ancient  writings  are  scarcely 
so  common  as  formerly  ;  no  great  part  of  our  literary 
talent  is  devoted  to  the  illustration  of  the  ancient 
masters :  but  what  seems  at  first  sight  less  dignified, 
annotation  on  modern  writings,  was  never  so  frequent. 
Hazlitt  started  the  question  whether  it  would  not  be 
as  well  to  review  works  which  did  not  appear,  in 
lieu  of  those  which  did ;  wishing  as  a  reviewer  to 
escape  the  labor  of  perusing  print,  and  as  a  man  to 
save  his  fellow  creatures  from  the  slow  torture  of 
tedious  extracts,  f  But  though  approximations  may 
frequently  be  noticed,  —  though  the  neglect  of  authors 
and  independence  of  critics  are  on  the  increase,  —  this 
conception,  in  its  grandeur,  has  never  been  carried 
out.  J  We  are  surprised  at  first  sight  that  writers 
should  wish  to  comment  on  one  another,  —  it  appears 
a  tedious  mode  of  stating  opinions,  and  a  needless 
confusion  of  personal  facts  with  abstract  arguments  : 
and  some,  especially  authors  who  have  been  censured, 


*  For  the  story  of  its  establishment,  besides  Sydney  Smith's  account  in 
the  Preface  to  his  Works,  which  makes  it  a  sort  of  "lark,"  started  on  a 
"sudden  thought"  like  that  which  makes  Canning's  heroes  "swear  eternal 
friendship,"  see  Jeffrey's  more  probable  account  written  to  Robert  Chambers 
in  1846  (Cockburn's  "Life,"  Vol.  L,  pages  109,  110),  which  shows  that  (as 
was  likely)  there  were  many  anxious  consultations  and  grave  doubts.  The 
meeting  in  his  tenement  was  merely  the  first  sei'ioits  council  over  it.  —  ED. 

t" Essay  on  Criticism,"  in  the  "Table  Talk." 

t Indeed  it  has,  more  than  once.  The  sometime  famous  "Rolliad" 
(which  existed  only  in  the  "extracts"  made  by  its  "reviewers")  was  one 
instance.  A  still  racier  one  was  that  of  "Peter's  Letters  to  his  Kinsfolk,* 
"reviewed"  with  copious  "extracts"  by  Lockhart  in  BlackwoocTs  for  Feb- 
ruary, 1819 :  the  "  review "  excited  so  much  curiosity  that  Lockhart  and 
others  actually  wrote  the  book  (ingeniously  incorporating  the  "extracts"), 
and  Black  wood  published  it  as  a  "second  edition."  —  ED. 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS. 


say  that  the  cause  is  laziness ;  that  it  is  easier  to 
write  a  review  than  a  book ;  and  that  reviewers  are, 
as  Coleridge  declared,  a  species  of  maggots,  inferior 
to  bookworms,  living  on  the  delicious  brains  of  real 
genius.*  Indeed,  it  would  be  very  nice,  but  our  world 
is  so  imperfect !  This  idea  is  wholly  false.  Doubtless 
it  is  easier  to  write  one  review  than  one  book;  but 
not,  which  is  the  real  case,  many  reviews  than  one 
book.  A  deeper  cause  must  be  looked  for. 

In  truth,  review  writing  but  exemplifies  the  casual 
character  of  modern  literature:  everything,  about  it 
is  temporary  and  fragmentary.  Look  at  a  railway 
stall :  you  see  books  of  every  color,  —  blue,  yellow, 
crimson,  "ring-streaked,  speckled,  and  spotted, "f  —  on 
every  subject,  in  every  style,  of  every  opinion,  with 
every  conceivable  difference,  celestial  or  sublunary, 
maleficent,  beneficent  —  but  all  small.  People  take 
their  literature  in  morsels,  as  they  take  sandwiches  on 
a  journey.  The  volumes  at  least,  you  can  see  clearly, 
are  not  intended  to  be  everlasting.  It  may  be  all 
very  well  for  a  pure  essence  like  poetry  to  be  im- 
mortal in  a  perishable  world,  —  it  has  no  feeling ;  but 
paper  cannot  endure  it,  paste  cannot  bear  it,  string 
has  no  heart  for  it.  The  race  has  made  up  its  mind 
to  be  fugitive  as  well  as  minute.  What  a  change 
from  the  ancient  volume!  — 

"That  weight  of  wood,  with  leathern  coat  o'erlaid, 
Those  ample  clasps,  of  solid  metal  made ; 
The  close-pressed  leaves,  unclosed  for  many  an  age, 
The  dull-red  edging  of  the  well-filled  page ; 
On  the  broad  back  the  stubborn  ridges  rolled, 
Where  yet  the  title  stands  in  tarnished  gold. "  J 

And  the  change  in  the  appearance  of  books  has 
been  accompanied  —  has  been  caused  —  by  a  similar 

*  Probably  a  reference  to  this  in  "The  Friend,"  Sect,  i.,  Essay  v. :  —  "A 
numerous  host  of  shallow  heads  and  restless  tempers,  —  men  who  .  .  .  live 
as  almsfolk  on  the  opinions  of  their  contemporaries."  —  ED. 

t  Gen.  xxxi.  39. 

JCrabbe,  "The  Library." 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 


change  in  readers.  What  a  transition  from  the  stu- 
dent of  former  ages !  from  a  grave  man,  with  grave 
cheeks  and  a  considerate  eye,  who  spends  his  life  in 
study,  has  no  interest  in  the  outward  world,  hears 
nothing  of  its  din  and  cares  nothing  for  its  honors, 
who  would  gladly  learn  and  gladly  teach,  whose  whole 
soul  is  taken  up  with  a  few  books  of  "Aristotle  and 
his  Philosophy,"  —  to  the  merchant  in  the  railway, 
with  a  head  full  of  sums,  an  idea  that  tallow  is 
"up,"  a  conviction  that  teas  are  "lively,"  and  a  mind 
reverting  perpetually  from  the  little  volume  which  he 
reads  to  these  mundane  topics,  to  the  railway,  to 
the  shares,  to  the  buying  and  bargaining  universe. 
We  must  not  wonder  that  the  outside  of  books  is 
so  different,  when  the  inner  nature  of  those  for  whom 
they  are  written  is  so  changed. 

It  is  indeed  a  peculiarity  of  our  times  that  we 
must  instruct  so  many  persons.  On  politics,  on  reli- 
gion, on  all  less  important  topics  still  more,  every 
one  thinks  himself  competent  to  think,  in  some  casual 
manner  does  think,  to  the  best  of  our  means  must  be 
taught  to  think  rightly.  Even  if  we  had  a  profound 
and  far-seeing  statesman,  his  deep  ideas  and  long- 
reaching  vision  would  be  useless  to  us,  unless  we  could 
impart  a  confidence  in  them  to  the  mass  of  influential 
persons;  to  the  unelected  Commons,  the  unchosen 
Council,  who  assist  at  the  deliberations  of  the  nation. 
In  religion,  the  appeal  now  is  not  to  the  technicalities 
of  scholars  or  the  fictions  of  recluse  schoolmen,  but 
to  the  deep  feelings,  the  sure  sentiments,  the  painful 
strivings  of  all  who  think  and  hope.  And  this  appeal 
to  the  many  necessarily  brings  with  it  a  consequence  : 
we  must  speak  to  the  many  so  that  they  will  listen, 
that  they  wull  like  to  listen,  that  they  will  understand. 
It  is  of  no  use  addressing  them  with  the  forms  of 
science,  or  the  rigor  of  accuracy,  or  the  tedium  of 
exhaustive  discussion.  The  multitude  are  impatient 
of  system,  desirous  of  brevity,  puzzled  by  formality. 
They  agree  with  Sydney  Smith:  —  "Political  economy 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS. 


has  become,  in  the  hands  of  Malthus  and  Ricardo,  a 
school  of  metaphysics.  All  seem  agreed  what  is  to 
be  done ;  the  contention  is,  how  the  subject  is  to  be 
divided  and  defined.  Meddle  with  no  such  matters"* 
We  are  not  sneering  at  "the  last  of  the  sciences": 
we  are  concerned  with  the  essential  doctrine,  and 
not  with  the  particular  instance.  Such  is  the  taste 
of  mankind. 

We  may  repeat  ourselves. 

There  is,  as  yet,  no  Act  of  Parliament  compelling 
a  bona  fide  traveler  to  read :  if  you  wish  him  to  read, 
you  must  make  reading  pleasant;  you  must  give  him 
short  views  and  clear  sentences.  It  will  not  answer 
to  explain  what  all  the  things  which  you  describe 
are  not:  you  must  begin  by  saying  what  they  are. 
There  is  exactly  the  difference  between  the  books  of 
this  age  and  those  of  a  more  laborious  age  f  that 
we  feel  between  the  lecture  of  a  professor  and  the 
talk  of  the  man  of  the  world :  the  former  profound, 
systematic,  suggesting  all  arguments,  analyzing  all 
difficulties,  discussing  all  doubts,  —  very  admirable,  a 
little  tedious,  slowly  winding  an  elaborate  way,  the 
characteristic  effort  of  one  who  has  "hived  wisdom" 
during  many  "studious  years,"J  agreeable  to  such  as 
he  is,  anything  but  agreeable  to  such  as  he  is  not; 
the  latter  the  talk  of  the  manifold  talker,  glancing 
lightly  from  topic  to  topic,  suggesting  deep  things 
in  a  jest,  unfolding  unanswerable  arguments  in  an 
absurd  illustration,  expounding  nothing,  completing 
nothing,  exhausting  nothing,  yet  really  suggesting  the 
lessons  of  a  wider  experience,  embodying  the  results 
of  a  more  finely  tested  philosophy,  passing  with  a 
more  Shakespearian  transition,  connecting  topics  with 
a  more  subtle  link,  refining  on  them  with  an  acuter 
perception,  and  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  pleasing 

•There  is  no  such  passage  in  his  writings,  and  his  references  to  Malthus 
are  all  not  only  respectful  but  almost  reverential.  —  ED. 

t  The  order  of  these  clauses  should  be  inverted. —  ED. 

{"And  hiving  wisdom  with  each  studious  year."  —  Byron,  "Childe  Har- 
old," Canto  Hi.,  stanza  107,  describing  Gibbon. 


G  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

all  that  hear  him,  charming  high  and  low,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  with  a  word  of  illustration  for  each 
and  a  touch  of  humor  intelligible  to  all,  —  fragmentary 
yet  imparting  what  he  says,  allusive  yet  explaining 
what  he  intends,  disconnected  yet  impressing  what 
he  maintains.  This  is  the  very  model  of  our  modern 
writing.  The  man  of  the  modern  world  is  used  to 
speak  what  the  modern  world  will  hear;  the  writer 
of  the  modern  world  must  write  what  that  world  will 
indulgently  and  pleasantly  peruse. 

In  this  transition  from  ancient  writing  to  modern, 
the  review-like  essay  and  the  essay -like  review  fill  a 
large  space.  Their  small  bulk,  their  slight  pretension 
to  systematic  completeness,  —  their  avowal,  it  might 
be  said,  of  necessary  incompleteness,  —  the  facility  of 
changing  the  subject,  of  selecting  points  to  attack,  of 
exposing  only  the  best  corner  for  defense,  are  great 
temptations.  Still  greater  is  the  advantage  of  "our 
limits."  A  real  reviewer  always  spends  his  first  and 
best  pages  on  the  parts  of  a  subject  on  which  he 
wishes  to  write,  the  easy  comfortable  parts  which 
he  knows.  The  formidable  difficulties  which  he 
acknowledges,  you  foresee  by  a  strange  fatality  that 
he  will  only  reach  two  pages  before  the  end ;  to  his 
great  grief,  there  is  no  opportunity  for  discussing 
them.  As  a  young  gentleman  at  the  India  House 
examination  wrote  "Time  up"  on  nine  unfinished 
papers  in  succession,  so  you  may  occasionally  read  a 
whole  review,  in  every  article  of  which  the  principal 
difficulty  of  each  successive  question  is  about  to  be 
reached  at  the  conclusion.  Nor  can  any  one  deny 
that  this  is  the  suitable  skill,  the  judicious  custom 
of  the  craft. 

Some  may  be  inclined  to  mourn  over  the  old  days 
of  systematic  arguments  and  regular  discussion.  A 
"field-day"  controversy  is  a  fine  thing;  these  skir- 
mishes have  much  danger  and  no  glory.  Yet  there 
is  one  immense  advantage :  the  appeal  now  is  to 
the  mass  of  sensible  persons.  Professed  students  are 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS. 


not  generally  suspected  of  common-sense ;  and  though 
they  often  show  acuteness  in  their  peculiar  pursuits, 
they  have  not  the  various  experience,  the  changing 
imagination,  the  feeling  nature,  the  realized  detail 
which  are  necessary  data  for  a  thousand  questions. 
Whatever  we  may  think  on  this  point,  however,  the 
transition  has  been  made.  The  Edinburgh  Review 
was  at  its  beginning  a  material  step  in  the  change. 
Unquestionably  the  Spectator  and  Tatler,  and  such 
like  writings,  had  opened  a  similar  vein ;  but  their 
size  was  too  small :  they  could  only  deal  with  small 
fragments  or  the  extreme  essence  of  a  subject ;  they 
could  not  give  a  view  of  what  was  complicated,  or 
analyze  what  was  involved.  The  modern  man  must 
be  told  what  to  think  ;  shortly,  no  doubt,  but  he  must 
be  told  it.  The  essay-like  criticism  of  modern  times 
is  about  the  length  which  he  likes.  The  Edinburgh 
Review,  which  began  the  system,  may  be  said  to  be, 
in  this  country,  the  commencement  on  large  topics 
of  suitable  views  for  sensible  persons. 

The  circumstances  of  the  time  were  especially 
favorable  to  such  an  undertaking.  Those  years  were 
the  commencement  of  what  is  called  the  Eldonine 
period.  The  cold  and  haughty  Pitt  had  gone  down 
to  the  grave  in  circumstances  singularly  contrasting 
with  his  prosperous  youth  ;  and  he  had  carried  along 
with  him  the  inner  essence  of  half-liberal  principle 
which  had  clung  to  a  tenacious  mind  from  youthful 
associations,  and  was  all  that  remained  to  the  Tories 
of  abstraction  or  theory.  As  for  Lord  Eldon,  it  is 
the  most  difficult  thing  in  the  world  to  believe  that 
there  ever  was  such  a  man  ;  it  only  shows  how  in- 
tense historical  evidence  is,  that  no  one  really  doubts 
it.  He  believed  in  everything  which  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  believe  in,  —  in  the  danger  of  Parliamentary 
Reform,  the  danger  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  the 
danger  of  altering  the  Court  of  Chancery,  the  danger 
of  altering  the  courts  of  law,  the  danger  of  abolish- 
ing capital  punishment  for  trivial  thefts,  the  danger 


8  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  making  land-owners  pay  their  debts,  the  danger 
of  making  anything  more,  the  danger  of  making 
anything  less.  It  seems  as  if  he  maturely  thought, 
"Now,  I  know  the  present  state  of  things  to  be  con- 
sistent with  the  existence  of  John  Lord  Eldon ;  but 
if  we  begin  altering  that  state,  I  am  sure  I  do  not 
know  that  it  will  be  consistent."  As  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  was  against  all  committees  of  inquiry  on 
the  simple  ground,  "If  they  once  begin  that  sort  of 
thing,  who  knows  who  will  be  safe  ? "  *  so  that  great 
Chancellor  (still  remembered  in  his  own  scene)  looked 
pleasantly  down  from  the  woolsack,  and  seemed  to 
observe,  "Well,  it  is  a  queer  thing  that  I  should  be 
here,  and  here  I  mean  to  stay."  With  this  idea,  he 
employed  for  many  years  all  the  abstract  intellect 
of  an  accomplished  lawyer,  all  the  practical  bonhomie 
of  an  accomplished  courtier,  all  the  energy  of  both 
professions,  all  the  subtlety  acquired  in  either,  in  the 
task  of  maintaining  John  Lord  Eldon  in  the  Cabi- 
net, and  maintaining  a  Cabinet  that  would  suit  John 
Lord  Eldon.  No  matter  what  change  or  misfortunes 
happened  to  the  royal  house,  —  whether  the  most  im- 
portant person  in  court  politics  was  the  old  king  or 
the  young  king,  Queen  Charlotte  or  Queen  Caroline, 
whether  it  was  a  question  of  talking  grave  business 
to  the  mutton  of  George  III.  or  queer  stories  beside 
the  champagne  of  George  IV. ,  —  there  was  the  same 
figure.  To  the  first  he  was  tearfully  conscientious ; 
and  at  the  second  the  old  Northern  Circuit  stories, 
(how  old,  what  outlasting  tradition  shall  ever  say  ? ) 
told  with  a  cheerful  bonhomie  and  a  strong  conviction 
that  they  were  ludicrous,  really  seem  to  have  pleased 
as  well  as  the  more  artificial  niceties  of  the  professed 
wits.  He  was  always  agreeable  and  always  service- 
able. No  little  peccadillo  offended  him :  the  ideal, 
according  to  the  satirist,  of  a  "good-natured  man,"f 

*  Only  when  directed  against  himself  or  his  adherents.  Compare  his  con- 
duct in  the  Cadogan  case  with  that  on  the  pension  inquest  or  the  demand 
on  the  King  for  his  removal  (Coxe,  Chaps,  xvii.,  xxxvi.,  Ivi.).  — ED. 

tHazlitt  on  Eldon,  in  the  "Spirit  of  the  Age";  see  also  essay  on  "Good 
Nature,"  in  his  "Table  Talk." 


THE  FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS. 


he  cared  for  nothing  until  he  was  himself  hurt.  He 
ever  remembered  the  statute  which  absolves  obedience 
to  a  king  de  facto.  And  it  was  the  same  in  the  po- 
litical world :  there  was  one  man  who  never  changed. 
No  matter  what  politicians  came  and  went,  —  and  a 
good  many,  including  several  that  are  now  scarcely 
remembered,  did  come  and  go, — the  "Cabinet-maker," 
as  men  called  him,  still  remained. 

"'As  to  Lord  Liverpool  being  Prime  Minister,'  continued  Mr. 
Brougham,  '  he  is  no  more  Prime  Minister  than  I  am.  I  reckon 
Lord  Liverpool  a  sort  of  member  of  Opposition  ;  and  after  what 
has  recently  passed,  if  I  were  required,  I  should  designate  him  as 
"a  noble  lord  in  another  place  with  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  act." 
Lord  Liverpool  may  have  collateral  influence,  but  Lord  Eldon  has 
all  the  direct  influence  of  the  Prime  Minister.  He  is  Prime  Minister 
to  all  intents  and  purposes,  and  he  stands  alone  in  the  full  exercise 
of  all  the  influence  of  that  high  situation.  Lord  Liverpool  has  car- 
ried measures  against  the  Lord  Chancellor :  so  have  I.  ...  If  Lord 
Liverpool  carried  the  Marriage  Act,  I  carried  the  Education  Bill ; '  "  * 

etc.,  etc.  And  though  the  general  views  of  Lord 
Eldon  may  be  described, — though  one  can  say,  at 
least  negatively  and  intelligibly,  that  he  objected  to 
everything  proposed  and  never  proposed  anything  him- 
self,—  the  arguments  are  such  as  it  would  require 
great  intellectual  courage  to  endeavor  at  all  to  ex- 
plain. What  follows  is  a  favorable  specimen :  — 

"Lord  Grey,1'  says  his  biographer,  "having  introduced  a  bill 
for  dispensing  with  the  declarations  prescribed  by  the  Acts  of  25 
and  of  30  Car.  II.  against  the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation  and 
against  the  Invocation  of  Saints,  moved  the  second  reading  of  it  on 
the  10th  of  June;  when  the  Lord  Chancellor  again  opposed  the  prin- 
ciple of  such  a  measure,  urging  that  the  law  which  had  been  intro- 
duced under  Charles  II.  had  been  re-enacted  in  the  first  Parliament 
of  William  III.,  the  founder  of  our  civil  and  religious  liberties. 
It  had  been  thought  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  these  that 
Papists  should  not  be  allowed  to  sit  in  Parliament,  and  some  test 
was  therefore  necessary  by  which  it  might  be  ascertained  whether 
a  man  was  a  Catholic  or  a  Protestant.  The  only  possible  test  for 


*  Speech  on  the  Scotch  Appeals  Bill,  July  16,  1833.  Hansard,  and  quoted 
(with  slight  variations)  by  both  Twiss("Life  of  Eldon,"  Vol.  ii.,  Chap,  xlv.) 
and  Campbell  ("Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors,"  Chap.  ccvi.). 


10         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

such  a  purpose  was  an  oath  declaratory  of  religious  belief;  and  as 
Dr.  Paley  had  observed,*  it  was  perfectly  just  to  have  a  religious 
test  of  a  political  creed.  He  entreated  the  House  not  to  commit  the 
crime  against  posterity  of  transmitting  to  them  in  an  impaired  or 
insecure  state  the  civil  and  religious  liberties  of  England."! 

And  this  sort  of  appeal  to  Paley  and  King  William 
is  made  the  ground  —  one  can  hardly  say  the  reason— 
for  the  most  rigid  adherence  to  all  that  was  estab- 
lished. 

It  may  be  asked,  How  came  the  English  people  to 
endure  this  ?  They  are  not  naturally  illiberal ;  on  the 
contrary,  though  slow  and  cautious,  they  are  prone  to 
steady  improvement,  and  not  at  all  disposed  to  acqui- 
esce in  the  unlimited  perfection  of  their  rulers.  On  a 
certain  imaginative  side,  unquestionably,  there  is  or 
was  a  strong  feeling  of  loyalty,  of  attachment  to  what 
is  old,  love  for  what  is  ancestral,  belief  in  what  has 
been  tried.  But  the  fond  attachment  to  the  past  is 
a  very  different  idea  from  a  slavish  adoration  of  the 
present.  Nothing  is  more  removed  from  the  Eldonine 
idolatry  of  the  status  quo  than  the  old  Cavalier  feeling 
of  deep  idolatry  for  the  ancient  realm,  —  that  half- 
mystic  idea  that  consecrated  what  it  touched ;  the 
moonlight,  as  it  were,  which 

"Silvered  the  walls  of  Cumnor  Hall, 
And  many  an  oak  that  grew  thereby. "  { 

Why,  then,  did  the  English  endure  the  everlasting 
Chancellor  ? 

The  fact  is,  that  Lord  Eldon's  rule  was  maintained 
a  great  deal  on  the  same  motives  as  that  of  Louis 
Napoleon.  One  can  fancy  his  astonishment  at  hearing 
it  said,  and  his  cheerful  rejoinder  that  "Whatever  he 
was  (and  Mr.  Brougham  was  in  the  habit  of  calling 
him  strange  names),  no  one  should  ever  make  him 
believe  that  he  was  a  Bonaparte."  But  in  fact  he  was, 


*" Moral  and  Political  Philosophy,"  Book  vi.,  Chap,  x.,  near  the  close. 
tTwiss's  "Life  of  Eldon,"  Vol.  i.,  Chap.  xli. 

}  Opening  lines  of  Mickle's  "Cumnor  Hall,"  given  at  end  of  Introduction 
to  "  Kenilworth "  ;  from  Evans's  "Old  Ballads,"  Vol.  iv.,  No.  19. 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  11 

like  the  present  Emperor,  the  head  of  what  we  call 
"the  party  of  order."  Everybody  knows  what  keeps 
Louis  Napoleon  in  his  place  :  it  is  not  attachment  to 
him,  but  dread  of  what  he  restrains, — dread  of  rev- 
olution. The  present  may  not  be  good,  and  having 
such  newspapers  —  you  might  say  no  newspapers  — 
is  dreadful :  but  it  is  better  than  no  trade,  bankrupt 
banks,  loss  of  old  savings ;  your  mother  beheaded 
on  destructive  principles,  your  eldest  son  shot  on  con- 
servative ones.  Very  similar  was  the  feeling  of  Eng- 
lishmen in  the  year  1800,  —  they  had  no  liking  at  all 
for  the  French  system  :  statesmen  saw  its  absurdity, 
holy  men  were  shocked  at  its  impiety,  mercantile 
men  saw  its  effect  on  the  five  per  cents.,  everybody 
was  revolted  by  its  cruelty.  That  it  came  across  the 
Channel  was  no  great  recommendation :  a  witty  writer 
of  our  own  time  says  that  if  a  still  Mussulman,  in 
his  flowing  robes,  wished  to  give  his  son  a  warning 
against  renouncing  his  faith,  he  would  take  the 
completest,  smartest,  dapperest  French  dandy  out  of 
the  streets  of  Pera,  and  say,  "There,  my  son,  if  ever 
you  come  to  forget  God  and  the  Prophet,  you  may 
come  to  look  like  that."'  Exactly  similar  in  old  Con- 
servative speeches  is  the  use  of  the  French  revolution  : 
if  you  proposed  to  alter  anything,  of  importance  or 
not  of  importance,  legal  or  social,  religious  or  not 
religious,  the  same  answer  was  ready,  — "  You  see 
what  the  French  have  come  to.  They  made  alter- 
ations :  if  we  make  alterations,  who  knows  but  we 
may  end  in  the  same  way  ? "  *  It  was  not  any 
peculiar  bigotry  in  Lord  Eldon  that  actuated  him, 
or  he  would  have  been  powerless ;  still  less  was  it 
any  affected  feeling  which  he  put  forward  (though 
doubtless  he  was  aware  of  its  persuasive  potency, 
and  worked  on  it  most  skillfully  to  his  own  ends) : 
it  was  genuine,  hearty,  craven  fear ;  and  he  ruled 
naturally  the  commonplace  Englishman,  because  he 


*  These  are  almost  the  exact   words  of  Gibbon  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Shef- 
field.    See  Vol.  H.,  page  56,  of  this  edition.  —  Eu. 


12         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

sympathized   in   his   sentiments  and  excelled   him  in 
his  powers. 

There  was,  too,  another  cause  beside  fear  which 
then  inclined  (and  which  in  similar  times  of  miscella- 
neous revolution  will  ever  incline)  subtle  rather  than 
creative  intellects  to  a  narrow  conservatism.  Such 
intellects  require  an  exact  creed :  they  want  to  be  able 
clearly  to  distinguish  themselves  from  those  around 
them,  to  tell  to  each  man  where  they  differ  and  why 
they  differ.  They  cannot  make  assumptions ;  they 
cannot,  like  the  merely  practical  man,  be  content 
with  rough  and  obvious  axioms :  they  require  a  theory. 
Such  a  want  it  is  difficult  to  satisfy  in  an  age  of 
confusion  and  tumult,  when  old  habits  are  shaken,  old 
views  overthrown,  ancient  assumptions  rudely  ques- 
tioned, ancient  inferences  utterly  denied  ;  when  each 
man  has  a  different  view  from  his  neighbor,  when  an 
intellectual  change  has  set  father  and  son  at  variance, 
when  a  man's  own  household  are  the  special  foes  of 
his  favorite  and  self-adopted  creed.  A  bold  and  origi- 
nal mind  breaks  through  these  vexations,  and  forms 
for  itself  a  theory  satisfactory  to  its  notions  and  suf- 
ficient for  its  wants  ;  a  weak  mind  yields  a  passive 
obedience  to  those  among  whom  it  is  thrown  :  but  a 
mind  which  is  searching  without  being  creative,  which 
is  accurate  and  logical  enough  to  see  defects  without 
being  combinative  or  inventive  enough  to  provide 
remedies,  —  which,  in  the  old  language,  is  discrim- 
inative rather  than  discursive, — is  wholly  unable,  out 
of  the  medley  of  new  suggestions,  to  provide  itself 
with  an  adequate  belief ;  and  it  naturally  falls  back 
on  the  status  quo.  This  is  at  least  clear  and  simple 
and  defined ;  you  know  at  any  rate  what  you  propose, 
where  you  end,  why  you  pause.  An  argumentative 
defense  it  is  doubtless  difficult  to  find :  but  there  are 
arguments  on  all  sides ;  the  world  is  a  medley  of  argu- 
ments ;  no  one  is  agreed  in  which  direction  to  alter 
the  world  ;  what  is  proposed  is  as  liable  to  objection 
as  what  exists  ;  nonsense  for  nonsense,  the  old  should 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  13 

keep  its  ground  :  and  so  in  times  of  convulsion  the 
philosophic  skepticism,  the  ever-questioning  hesitation 
of  Hume  and  Montaigne,  the  subtlest  quintessence 
of  the  most  restless  and  refining  abstraction,  becomes 
allied  to  the  stupidest,  crudest  acquiescence  in  the 
present  and  concrete  world.  We  read  occasionally 
in  Conservative  literature  (the  remark  is  as  true  of 
religion  as  of  politics)  alternations  of  sentences,  the 
first  an  appeal  to  the  coarsest  prejudice,  the  next  a 
subtle  hint  to  a  craving  and  insatiable  skepticism. 
You  may  trace  this  even  in  Vesey  junior.  Lord  Eldon 
never  read  Hume  or  Montaigne ;  but  sometimes,  in 
the  interstices  of  cumbrous  law,  you  may  find  sen- 
tences with  their  meaning,  if  not  in  their  manner  :  — 
"Dumpor's  Case  always  struck  me  as  extraordinary; 
but  if  you  depart  from  Dumpor's  Case,  what  is  there 
to  prevent  a  departure  in  every  direction  ? "  * 

The  glory  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  is,  that  from 
the  first  it  steadily  set  itself  to  oppose  this  timorous 
acquiescence  in  the  actual  system.  On  domestic  sub- 
jects, the  history  of  the  first  thirty  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  a  species  of  duel  between  the 
Edinburgh  Review  and  Lord  Eldon.  All  the  ancient 
abuses  which  he  thought  it  most  dangerous  to  impair, 
they  thought  it  most  dangerous  to  retain. 

"To  appreciate  the  value  of  the  Edinburgh  Review"  says  one 
of  the  founders,!  "the  state  of  England  at  the  period  when  that 
journal  began  should  be  had  in  remembrance.  The  Catholics  were 
not  emancipated.  The  Corporation  and  Test  Acts  were  unrepealed. 
The  game-laws  were  horribly  oppressive ;  steel-traps  and  spring-guns 
were  set  all  over  the  country  ;  prisoners  tried  for  their  lives  could 


*  Grossly  garbled  to  make  a  point  against  Eldon;  the  latter  merely  said 
(in  Brummell  w.  MacPherson,  July  25,  1807;  Vol.  xiv.  of  Charles  Sumner's 
edition  of  Reports  of  Francis  Vesey,  Jr.),  "Though  Dumpor's  Case  always 
struck  me  as  extraordinary,  it  is  the  law  of  the  land  at  this  clay."  The  point 
at  issue  was  the  right  of  an  assignee  of  a  lease  to  re-assign ;  and  Eldon 
expressed  nothing  more  than  the  principle  at  the  bottom  of  all  civilized  law, — 
that  the  legal  rights  in  reliance  upon  which  business  men  make  contracts 
must  not  be  wantonly  modified.  It  may  be  added  that  Dumpor's  Case  is  a 
guiding  precedent  to  thin  day.  —  ED. 

t  Sydney  Smith,  Preface  to  his  Works. 


14  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

have  no  counsel.  Lord  Eldon  and  the  Court  of  Chancery  pressed 
heavily  on  mankind.  Libel  was  punished  by  the  most  cruel  and 
vindictive  imprisonments.  The  principles  of  political  economy  were 
little  understood.  The  laws  of  debt  and  conspiracy  were  upon  the 
worst  footing.  The  enormous  wickedness  of  the  slave  trade  was 
tolerated.  A  thousand  evils  were  in  existence  which  the  talents  of 
good  and  able  men  have  since  lessened  or  removed ;  and  these 
efforts  have  been  not  a  little  assisted  by  the  honest  boldness  of  the 
Edinburgh  Review.'''' 

And  even  more  characteristic  than  the  advocacy  of 
these,  or  any  other  partial  or  particular  reforms,  is 
the  systematic  opposition  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  to 
the  crude  acquiescence  in  the  status  quo,  the  timor- 
ous dislike  to  change  because  it  was  change ;  to  the 
optimistic  conclusion  that  "what  is,  ought  to  be"; 
the  skeptical  query,  "  How  do  you  know  that  what 
you  say  will  be  any  better  ? " 

In  this  defense  of  the  principle  of  innovation,  — 
a  defense  which  it  requires  great  imagination  (or, 
as  we  suggested,  the  looking  across  the  Channel)  to 
conceive  the  efficacy  of  now,  —  the  Edinburgh  Review 
was  but  the  doctrinal  organ  of  the  Whigs.  A  great 
deal  of  philosophy  has  been  expended  in  endeavoring 
to  fix  and  express  theoretically  the  creed  of  that 
party  :  various  forms  of  abstract  doctrine  have  been 
drawn  out,  in  which  elaborate  sentence  follows  hard 
on  elaborate  sentence,  to  be  set  aside  or  at  least  vig- 
orously questioned  by  the  next  or  succeeding  inquirers. 
In  truth,  Whiggism  is  not  a  creed,  it  is  a  character. 
Perhaps  as  long  as  there  has  been  a  political  history 
in  this  country,  there  have  been  certain  men  of  a 
cool,  moderate,  resolute  firmness,  not  gifted  with  high 
imagination,  little  prone  to  enthusiastic  sentiment, 
heedless  of  large  theories  and  speculations,  careless 
of  dreamy  skepticism ;  with  a  clear  view  of  the  next 
step,  and  a  wise  intention  to  take  it ;  a  strong  con- 
viction that  the  elements  of  knowledge  are  true,  and 
a  steady  belief  that  the  present  world  can  and  should 
be  quietly  improved. 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  15 

These  are  the  Whigs.  A  tinge  of  simplicity  still 
clings  to  the  character ;  of  old  it  was  the  ' '  Country 
Pa'rty."  The  limitation  of  their  imagination  is  in 
some  sort  an  advantage  to  such  men :  it  confines 
them  to  a  simple  path,  prevents  their  being  drawn 
aside  by  various  speculations,  restricts  them  to  what 
is  clear  and  intelligible  and  at  hand.  "I  cannot," 
said  Sir  S.  Romilly,  "be  convinced  without  argu- 
ments, and  I  do  not  see  that  either  Burke  or  Paine 
advance  any."*  He  was  unable  to  see  that  the  most 
convincing  arguments  —  and  some  of  those  in  the 
work  of  Burke  which  he  alludes  tof  are  certainly 
sound  enough  —  may  be  expressed  imaginatively,  and 
may  work  a  far  firmer  persuasion  than  any  neat  and 
abstract  statement.  Nor  are  the  intellectual  powers 
of  the  characteristic  element  in  this  party  exactly 
of  the  loftiest  order :  they  have  no  call  to  make  great 
discoveries,  or  pursue  unbounded  designs,  or  amaze 
the  world  by  some  wild  dream  of  empire  and  renown. 
That  terrible  essence  of  daring  genius,  such  as  we 
see  it  in  Napoleon  and  can  imagine  it  in  some  of 
the  conquerors  of  old  time,  is  utterly  removed  from 
their  cool  and  placid  judgment.  In  taste  they  are 
correct, — that  is,  better  appreciating  the  complete 
compliance  with  explicit  and  ascertained  rules  than 
the  unconscious  exuberance  of  inexplicable  and  un- 
foreseen beauties.  In  their  own  writings  they  display 
the  defined  neatness  of  the  second  order,  rather  than 
the  aspiring  hardihood  of  the  first  excellence.  In 
action  they  are  quiet  and  reasonable,  rather  than 
inventive  and  overwhelming.  Their  power,  indeed, 
is  scarcely  intellectual ;  on  the  contrary,  it  resides 
in  what  Aristotle  would  have  called  their  TJOog  and 
we  should  call  their  "nature."  They  are  emphatically 

*  Letter  to  Mme.  G ,  May  20,  1791,  in  Vol.  i.  of  his  "Memoirs":  — 

"Paine's  book,  on  the  other  hand,  has  made  converts  of  a  great  many  per- 
sons ;  which,  I  confess,  appears  to  me  as  wonderful  as  the  success  of  Burke's : 
for  I  do  not  understand  how  men  can  be  convinced  without  arguments,  and 
I  find  none  in  Paine,  though  I  admit  he  has  great  merit." 

t  "  Reflections  upon  the  Revolution  in  France." 


16  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

pure-natured  and  firm-natured.  Instinctively  casting 
aside  the  coarse  temptations  and  crude  excitements 
of  a  vulgar  earth,  they  pass  like  a  September  breeze 
across  the  other  air,  cool  and  refreshing ;  unable,  one 
might  fancy,  even  to  comprehend  the  many  offenses 
with  which  all  else  is  fainting  and  oppressed.  So  far 
even  as  their  excellence  is  intellectual,  it  consists  less 
in  the  supereminent  possession  of  any  single  talent  or 
endowment  than  in  the  simultaneous  enjoyment  and 
felicitous  adjustment  of  many  or  several ;  in  a  certain 
balance  of  the  faculties  which  we  call  "judgment" 
or  ''sense,"  Vhich  placidly  indicates  to  them  what 
should  be  done,  and  which  is  not  preserved  without 
an  equable  calm  and  a  patient,  persistent  watchful- 
ness. In  such  men  the  moral  and  intellectual  nature 
half  become  one.  Whether,  according  to  the  Greek 
question,  manly  virtue  can  be  taught  or  not,  assuredly 
it  has  never  been  taught  to  them :  it  seems  a  native 
endowment ;  it  seems  a  soul  —  a  soul  of  honor,  as 
we  speak  —  within  the  exterior  soul, — a  fine  impal- 
pable essence,  more  exquisite  than  the  rest  of  the 
being,  —  as  the  thin  pillar  of  the  cloud,  more  beautiful 
than  the  other  blue  of  heaven,  governing  and  guid- 
ing a  simple  way  through  the  dark  wilderness  of  our 
world. 

To  descend  from  such  elevations,  among  people 
Sir  Samuel  Romilly  is  the  best  known  type  of  this 
character,  —  the  admirable  biography  of  him  made 
public  his  admirable  virtues  ;  yet  it  is  probable  that 
among  the  aristocratic  Whigs,  persons  as  typical  of 
the  character  can  be  found.  This  species  of  noble 
nature  is  exactly  of  the  kind  which  hereditary  asso- 
ciations tend  to  purify  and  confirm  ;  just  that  casual, 
delicate,  placid  virtue  which  it  is  so  hard  to  find, 
perhaps  so  sanguine  to  expect,  in  a  rough  tribune  of 
the  people.  Defects  enough  there  are  in  this  char- 
acter, on  which  we  shall  say  something;  yet  it  is 
wonderful  to  see  what  an  influence  in  this  sublunary 
sphere  it  gains  and  preserves.  The  world  makes  an 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  17 

oracle  of  its  judgment.  There  is  a  curious  living 
instance  of  this :  you  may  observe  that  when  an 
ancient  Liberal  —  Lord  John  Russell,  or  any  of  the 
essential  sect  —  has  done  anything  very  queer,  the 
last  thing  you  would  imagine  anybody  would  dream 
of  doing,  and  is  attacked  for  it,  he  always  answers 
boldly,  "Lord  Lansdowne  said  I  might;''''  or  if  it  is  a 
ponderous  day,  the  eloquence  runs,  "  A  noble  friend, 
with  whom  I  have  ever  had  the  inestimable  advan- 
tage of  being  associated  from  the  commencement 
(the  infantile  period,  I  might  say)  of  my  political 
life,  and  to  whose  advice—  '  etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  —  and  a 
very  cheerful  existence  it  must  be  for  "my  noble 
friend"  to  be  expected  to  justify  (for  they  never  say 
it  except  they  have  done  something  very  odd)  and 
dignify  every  aberration.  Still,  it  must  be  a  beauti- 
ful feeling  to  have  a  man  like  Lord  John  —  to  have 
a  stiff,  small  man  bowing  down  before  you.  And  a 
good  judge  certainly  suggested  the  conferring  of  this 
authority  :  — 

"Why  don't  they  talk  over  the  virtues  and  excellences  of  Lans- 
downe ?  There  is  no  man  who  performs  the  duties  of  life  better, 
or  fills  a  high  station  in  a  more  becoming  manner.  He  is  full  of 
knowledge,  and  eager  for  its  acquisition.  His  remarkable  polite- 
ness is  the  result  of  good  nature,  regulated  by  good  sense.  He 
looks  for  talents  and  qualities  among  all  ranks  of  men,  and  adds 
them  to  his  stock  of  society  as  a  botanist  does  his  plants;  and 
while  other  aristocrats  are  yawning  among  Stars  and  Garters, 
Lansdowne  is  refreshing  his  soul  with  the  fancy  and  genius  which 
he  has  found  in  odd  places  and  gathered  to  the  marbles  and 
pictures  of  his  palace.  Then  he  is  an  honest  politician,  a  wise 
statesman,  and  has  a  philosophic  mind."* 

Etc.,  etc.  Here  is  devotion  for  a  carping  critic;  and 
who  ever  heard  before  of  bonhomie  in  an  idol? 

It  may  strike  some  that  this  equable  kind  of  char- 
acter is  not  the  most  interesting ;  many  will  prefer 
the  bold  felicities  of  daring  genius,  the  deep  plans 
of  latent  and  searching  sagacity,  the  hardy  triumphs 

*  Sydney  Smith,  letter  to  John  Murray,  June  4,  1843;  "Memoir,"  Vol.  ii. 

VOL.  I.— 2 


18  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  an  overawing  and  imperious  will :  yet  it  is  not 
unremarkable  that  an  experienced  and  erudite  French- 
man, not  unalive  to  artistic  effect,  has  just  now  se- 
lected this  very  species  of  character  for  the  main 
figure  in  a  large  portion  of  an  elaborate  work, — the 
hero  of  M.  Villemain  *  is  one  to  whom  he  delights 
to  ascribe  such  things  as  bon  sens,  esprit  juste,  coeur 
excellent.  The  result,  it  may  be  owned,  is  a  little 
dull ;  yet  it  is  not  the  less  characteristic,  —  the  in- 
structed observer  has  detected  the  deficiency  of  his 
country.  If  France  had  more  men  of  firm  will,  quiet 
composure,  with  a  suspicion  of  enormous  principle 
and  a  taste  for  moderate  improvement, — if  a  Whig 
party,  in  a  word,  were  possible  in  France,  —  France 
would  be  free.  And  though  there  are  doubtless  crises 
in  affairs,  dark  and  terrible  moments,  when  a  more 
creative  intellect  is  needful  to  propose,  a  more  dicta- 
torial will  is  necessary  to  carry  out,  a  sudden  and 
daring  resolution ;  though  in  times  of  inextricable 
confusion  —  perhaps  the  present  is  one  of  themf  —  a 
more  abstruse  and  disentangling  intellect  is  required 
to  untwist  the  raveled  perplexities  of  a  complicated 
world,  —  yet  England  will  cease  to  be  the  England 
of  our  fathers  when  a  large  share  in  great  affairs  is 
no  longer  given  to  the  equable  sense,  the  composed 
resolution,  the  homely  purity  of  the  characteristic 
Whigs. 

It  is  evident  that  between  such  men  and  Lord 
Eldon  there  could  be  no  peace ;  and  between  them 
and  the  Edinburgh  Review  there  was  a  natural  alli- 
ance. Not  only  the  kind  of  reforms  there  proposed, 
the  species  of  views  therein  maintained,  but  the 
very  manner  in  which  those  views  and  alterations 
are  put  forward  and  maintained,  is  just  what  they 
would  like.  The  kind  of  writing  suitable  to  such 
minds  is  not  the  elaborate,  ambitious,  exhaustive 


*  Evidently  meaning  Count  Louis  de  Narbonne  (in  Villemain's  "Souvenirs 
Contemporaines "),  minister  of  Louis  XVI.  and  holding  various  positions 
under  Napoleon. — ED, 

tJust  after  the  capture  of  Sebastopol. —  ED. 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  19 

discussion  of  former  ages,  but  the  clear,  simple,  oc- 
casional writing  (as  we  just  now  described  it)  of  the 
present  times.  The  opinions  to  be  expressed  are  short 
and  simple,  the  innovations  suggested  are  natural 
and  evident :  neither  one  nor  the  other  require  more 
than  an  intelligible  statement,  a  distinct  exposition 
to  the  world,  and  their  reception  would  be  only 
impeded  and  complicated  by  operose  and  cumbrous 
argumentation.  The  exact  mind  which  of  all  others 
dislikes  the  stupid  adherence  to  the  status  quo  is  the 
keen,  quiet,  improving  Whig  mind ;  the  exact  kind  of 
writing  most  adapted  to  express  that  dislike  is  the 
cool,  pungent,  didactic  essay. 

Equally  common  to  the  Whigs  and  the  Edinburgh 
Review  is  the  enmity  to  the  skeptical,  over-refining 
Toryism  of  Hume  and  Montaigne.  The  Whigs,  it 
is  true,  have  a  conservatism  of  their  own ;  but  it 
instinctively  clings  to  certain  practical  rules  tried  by 
steady  adherence,  to  appropriate  formulae  verified  by 
the  regular  application  and  steady  success  of  many 
ages.  Political  philosophers  speak  of  it  as  a  great 
step  when  the  idea  of  an  attachment  to  an  organized 
code  and  system  of  rules  and  laws  takes  the  place  of 
the  exclusive  Oriental  attachment  to  the  person  of  the 
single  monarch  :  this  step  is  natural,  is  instinctive, 
to  the  Whig  mind.  That  cool,  impassive  intelligence 
is  little  likely  to  yield  to  ardent  emotions  of  personal 
loyalty  ;  but  its  chosen  ideal  is  a  body  or  collection 
of  wise  rules  fitly  applicable  to  great  affairs,  pleasing 
a  placid  sense  by  an  evident  propriety,  gratifying 
the  capacity  for  business  by  a  constant  and  clear  ap- 
plicability. The  Whigs  are  constitutional  by  instinct, 
as  the  Cavaliers  were  monarchical  by  devotion ;  it 
has  been  a  jest  at  their  present  leader*  that  he  is 
over-familiar  with  public  forms  and  parliamentary 
rites.  The  first  wish  of  the  Whigs  is  to  retain  the 
Constitution  ;  the  second  —  and  it  is  of  almost  equal 
strength  —  is  to  improve  it.  They  think  the  body 

*Lord  Palrnerston. 


20  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  laws  now  existing  to  be,  in  the  main  and  in  its 
essence,  excellent ;  but  yet  that  there  are  exceptional 
defects  which  should  be  remedied,  superficial  incon- 
sistencies that  should  be  corrected.  The  most  opposite 
creed  is  that  of  the  skeptic  who  teaches  that  you  are 
to  keep  what  is  because  it  exists ;  not  from  a  convic- 
tion of  its  excellence,  but  from  an  uncertainty  that 
anything  better  can  be  obtained.  The  one  is  an 
attachment  to  precise  rules  for  specific  reasons ;  the 
other  an  acquiescence  in  the  present  on  grounds  that 
would  be  equally  applicable  to  its  very  opposite,  — 
from  a  disbelief  in  the  possibility  of  improvement  and 
a  conviction  of  the  uncertainty  of  all  things.  And 
equally  adverse  to  an  unlimited  skepticism  is  the 
nature  of  popular  writing.  It  is  true  that  the  great- 
est teachers  of  that  creed  have  sometimes,  and  as  it 
were  of  set  purpose,  adopted  that  species  of  writing ; 
yet  essentially  it  is  inimical  to  them.  Its  appeal  is 
to  the  people  :  as  has  been  shown,  it  addresses  the 
elite  of  common  men,  sensible  in  their  affairs,  intelli- 
gent in  their  tastes,  influential  among  their  neighbors. 
What  is  absolute  skepticism  to  such  men  ?  a  dream, 
a  chimera,  an  inexplicable  absurdity ;  tell  it  to  them 
to-day,  and  they  will  have  forgotten  it  to-morrow. 
A  man  of  business  hates  elaborate  trifling :  "If  you 
do  not  believe  your  own  senses,"  he  will  say,  "there 
is  no  use  in  my  talking  to  you."  As  to  the  multi- 
plicity of  arguments  and  the  complexity  of  questions, 
he  feels  them  little  :  he  has  a  plain,  simple  —  as  he 
would  say,  "practical"  —way  of  looking  at  the  mat- 
ter, and  you  will  never  make  him  comprehend  any 
other ;  he  knows  the  world  can  be  improved.  And 
thus  what  we  may  call  the  middle  species  of  writ- 
ing, which  is  intermediate  between  the  light,  frivolous 
style  of  merely  amusing  literature  and  the  heavy, 
conscientious  elaborateness  of  methodical  philosophy, 
—  the  style  of  the  original  Edinburgh,  —  is  in  truth 
as  opposed  to  the  vague,  desponding  conservatism  of 
the  skeptic  as  it  is  to  the  stupid  conservatism  of  the 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  21 

crude  and  uninstructed ;  and  substantially  for  the 
same  reason,  —  that  it  is  addressed  to  men  of  cool, 
clear,  and  practical  understandings. 

It  is  indeed  no  wonder  that  the  Edinburgh  Review 
should  be  agreeable  to  the  Whigs  ;  for  the  people  who 
founded  it  were  Whigs.  Among  these,  three  stand 
pre-eminent,  —  Horner,  Jeffrey,  and  Sydney  Smith. 
Other  men  of  equal  ability  may  have  contributed  — 
and  a  few  did  contribute  —  to  its  pages;  but  these 
men  were,  more  than  any  one  else,  the  first  Edin- 
burgh Review. 

Francis  Horner's  was  a  short  and  singular  life. 
He  was  the  son  of  an  Edinburgh  shopkeeper ;  he 
died  at  thirty-nine  :  and  when  he  died,  from  all  sides 
of  the  usually  cold  House  of  Commons  great  states- 
men and  thorough  gentlemen  got  up  to  deplore  his 
loss.  Tears  are  .rarely  parliamentary ;  all  men  are 
arid  towards  young  Scotchmen :  yet  it  was  one  of 
that  inclement  nation  whom  statesmen  of  the  species 
Castlereagh  and  statesmen  of  the  species  Whitbread— 
with  all  the  many  kinds  and  species  that  lie  between 
the  two  —  rose  in  succession  to  lament.  The  fortunes 
and  superficial  aspect  of  the  man  make  it  more  sin- 
gular. He  had  no  wealth,  was  a  briefless  barrister, 
never  held  an  office,  was  a  conspicuous  member  of 
the  most  unpopular  of  all  Oppositions,  —  the  opposi- 
tion to  a  glorious  and  successful  war.  He  never  had 
the  means  of  obliging  any  one.  He  was  destitute 
of  showy  abilities  :  he  had  not  the  intense  eloquence 
or  overwhelming  ardor  which  enthrall  and  captivate 
popular  assemblies ;  his  powers  of  administration 
were  little  tried,  and  may  possibly  be  slightly  ques- 
tioned. In  his  youthful  reading  he  was  remarkable 
for  laying  down,  for  a  few  months  of  study,  enormous 
plans,  such  as  many  years  would  scarcely  complete  ; 
and  not  especially  remarkable  for  doing  anything 
wonderful  towards  accomplishing  those  plans.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  who,  though  not  illiberal  in  his  essential 
intellect,  was  a  keen  partisan  on  superficial  matters, 


22        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  no  lenient  critic  on  actual  Edinburgh  Whigs, 
used  to  observe,  "  I  will  not  admire  your  Horner : 
he  always  put  me  in  mind  of  Obadiah's  bull,  *  who, 
though  he  never  produced  a  calf,  went  through  his 
business  with  such  a  grave  demeanor  that  he  al- 
ways maintained  his  credit  in  the  parish."  f  It  is 
no  explanation  of  the  universal  regret,  that  he  was 
a  considerable  political  economist :  no  real  English 
gentleman,  in  his  secret  soul,  was  ever  sorry  for  the 
death  of  a  political  economist ;  he  is  much  more  likely 
to  be  sorry  for  his  life.  There  is  an  idea  that  he 
has  something  to  do  with  statistics  :  or  if  that  be  ex- 
ploded, that  he  is  a  person  who  writes  upon  "value"  ; 
says  that  rent  is — you  cannot  very  well  make  out 
what ;  talks  excruciating  currency  :  he  may  be  useful, 
as  drying  machines  are  useful,  J  but  the  notion  of 
crying  about  him  is  absurd.  The  economical  loss 
might  be  great,  but  it  will  not  explain  the  mourning 
for  Francis  Horner. 

The  fact  is,  that  Horner  is  a  striking  example 
of  the  advantage  of  keeping  an  atmosphere.  This 
may  sound  like  nonsense,  and  yet  it  is  true :  there 
is  around  some  men  a  kind  of  circle  or  halo  of  in- 
fluences and  traits  and  associations,  by  which  they 
infallibly  leave  a  distinct  and  uniform  impression  on 
all  their -contemporaries.  It  is  very  difficult,  even  for 
those  who  have  the  best  opportunities,  to  analyze 
exactly  what  this  impression  consists  in,  or  why  it 
was  made ;  but  it  is  made,  —  there  is  a  certain  un- 
definable  keeping  in  the  traits  and  manner  and  com- 
mon speech  and  characteristic  actions  of  some  men, 
which  inevitably  stamps  the  same  mark  and  image. 
It  is  like  a  man's  style :  there  are  some  writers  who 
can  be  known  by  a  few  words  of  their  writing ; 

*See  last  chapter  of  "Tristram  Shandy." 

tSaid  to  Jeffrey  at  a  dinner;  Lockhart,  Vol.  ii.,  Chap,  v.,  near  the  close. 

t  "  Horner  is  ill.  He  was  desired  to  read  amusing  books  :  upon  searching 
his  library,  it  appeared  he  had  no  amusing  books, — the  nearest  of  any  work 
of  that  description  being  the  'Indian  Trader's  Complete  Guide'!"  —  Sydney 
Smith  to  Lady  Holland,  Jan.  10,  1809.— B. 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  23 

each  syllable  is  instinct  with  a  certain  spirit;  put  it 
into  the  hands  of  any  one  chosen  at  random,  the 
same  impression  will  be  produced  by  the  same  casual 
and  felicitous  means.  Just  so  in  character :  the  air 
and  atmosphere,  so  to  speak,  which  are  around  a 
man,  have  a  delicate  and  expressive  power,  and  leave 
a  stamp  of  unity  on  the  interpretative  faculty  of 
mankind.  Death  dissolves  this  association,  and  it 
becomes  a  problem  for  posterity  what  it  was  that 
contemporaries  observed  and  reverenced.  There  is 
Lord  Somers  :  does  any  one  know  why  he  had  such 
a  reputation  ?  He  was  Lord  Chancellor,  and  decided 
a  Bank  case,  and  had  an  influence  in  the  Cabinet  ; 
but  there  have  been  Lord  Chancellors  and  Bank 
cases  and  influential  Cabinet  ministers  not  a  few, 
that  have  never  attained  to  a  like  reputation.  There 
is  little  we  can  connect  specifically  with  his  name. 
Lord  Macaulay,  indeed,  says  that  he  spoke  for  five 
minutes  on  the  Bishops'  trial,  and  that  when  he  sat 
down  his  reputation  as  an  orator  and  constitutional 
lawyer  was  established.  *  But  this  must  be  a  trifle 
eloquent ;  hardly  any  orator  could  be  fast  enough  to 
attain  such  a  reputation  in  five  minutes.  The  truth 
is,  that  Lord  Somers  had  around  him  that  inexpress- 
ible attraction  and  influence  of  which  we  speak.  He 
left  a  sure — and  if  we  may  trust  the  historian,  even 
a  momentary  —  impression  on  those  who  saw  him ; 
by  a  species  of  tact  they  felt  him  to  be  a  great  man ; 
the  ethical  sense  —  for  there  is  almost  such  a  thing 
in  simple  persons  —  discriminated  the  fine  and  placid 
oneness  of  his  nature.  It  was  the  same  on  a  smaller 
scale  with  Horner.  After  he  had  left  Edinburgh  sev- 
eral years,  his  closest  and  most  confidential  associate 
writes  to  him  :  — 

"There  is  no  circumstance  in  your  life,  my  dear  Horner,  so 
enviable  as  the  universal  confidence  which  your  conduct  has  pro- 
duced among  all  descriptions  of  men.  I  do  not  speak  of  your 
friends,  who  have  been  close  and  near  observers ;  but  I  have  had 


*  History  of  England,  Vol.  ii.,  Chap,  viii.,  near  the  close. 


24  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

some  occasions  of  observing  the  impression  which  those  who  are 
distant  spectators  have  had,  and  I  believe  there  are  few  instances 
of  any  person  of  your  age  possessing  the  same  character  for  inde- 
pendence and  integrity,  —  qualities  for  which  very  little  credit  is 
given  in  general  to  young  men."* 

Sydney  Smith  said,  "The  Commandments  were  writ- 
ten on  his  face."  f  Of  course  he  was  a  very  ugly 
man,  but  the  moral  impression  in  fact  conveyed  was 
equally  efficacious. 

"I  have  often,"  said  the  same  most  just  observer,  "told  him 
there  was  not  a  crime  he  might  not  commit  with  impunity,  as  no 
judge  or  jury  who  saw  him  would  give  the  smallest  degree  of 
credit  to  any  evidence  against  him.  There  was  in  his  look  a  calm, 
settled  love  of  all  that  was  honorable  and  good,  —  an  air  of  wisdom 
and  of  sweetness :  you  saw  at  once  that  he  was  a  great  man,  whom 
nature  had  intended  for  a  leader  of  human  beings ;  you  ranged 
yourself  willingly  under  his  banners,  and  cheerfully  submitted  to 
his  sway."  f 

From  the  somewhat  lengthened  description  of  what 
we  defined  as  the  essential  Whig  character,  it  is  evi- 
dent how  agreeable  and  suitable  such  a  man  was 
to  their  quiet,  composed,  and  aristocratic  nature.  His 
tone  was  agreeable  to  English  gentlemen,  —  a  firm 
and  placid  manliness,  without  effort  or  pretension,  is 
what  they  like  best ;  and  therefore  it  was  that  the 
House  of  Commons  grieved  for  his  loss,  unanimously 
and  without  distinction. 

Some  friends  of  Horner's,  in  his  own  time,  mildly 
criticized  him  for  a  tendency  to  party  spirit.  The 
disease  in  him,  if  real,  was  by  no  means  virulent ; 
but  it  is  worth  noticing  as  one  of  the  defects  to 
which  the  proper  Whig  character  is  specially  prone. 
It  is  evident  in  the  quiet  agreement  of  the  men. 
Their  composed,  unimaginative  nature  is  inclined  to 
isolate  itself  in  a  single  view ;  their  placid  disposi- 
tion, never  prone  to  self -distrust,  is  rather  susceptible 


*  Letter  from  Lord  Murray,  Nov.  25, 1806 ;  in  "  Memoirs  of  Horner,"  Vol.  i. 
tLetter  to  Homer's  brother,   Aug.  26,  1842;  in  "Tributes,"  latte*-  part 
of  Vol.  ii.  of  "Memoirs  of  Horner." 
Jlbid. 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  25 

of  friendly  influence  ;  their  practical  habit  is  concen- 
trated on  what  should  be  done.  They  do  not  wish, 
they  do  not  like,  to  go  forth  into  various  specula- 
tion, to  put  themselves  in  the  position  of  opponents, 
to  weigh  in  a  refining  scale  the  special  weight  of 
small  objections.  Their  fancy  is  hardly  vivid  enough 
to  explain  to  them  all  the  characters  of  those  whom 
they  oppose  ;  their  intellect  scarcely  detective  enough 
to  discover  a  meaning  for  each  grain  in  opposing 
arguments.  Nor  is  their  temper,  it  may  be,  always 
prone  to  be  patient  with  propositions  which  tease 
and  persons  who  resist  them :  the  wish  to  call  down 
fire  from  heaven  is  rarely  absent  in  pure  zeal  for  a 
pure  cause. 

A  good  deal  of  praise  has  naturally  been  bestowed 
upon  the  Whigs  for  adopting  such  a  man  as  Horner, 
with  Komilly  and  others  of  that  time ;  and  much 
excellent  eulogy  has  been  expended  011  the  close 
boroughs,  which  afforded  to  the  Whig  leaders  a 
useful  mode  of  showing  their  favor.  Certainly  the 
character  of  Homer  was  one  altogether  calculated 
to  ingratiate  itself  with  the  best  and  most  special 
Whig  nature ;  but  as  for  the  eulogy  on  the  pro- 
prietary seats  in  Parliament,  it  is  certain  that  from 
the  position  of  the  Whig  party,  the  nomination  sys- 
tem was  then  most  likely  to  show  its  excellences 
and  to  conceal  its  defects.  Nobody  but  an  honest 
man  would  bind  himself  thoroughly  to  the  Whigs. 
It  was  evident  that  the  reign  of  Lord  Eldon  must 
be  long ;  the  heavy  and  common  Englishman  (after 
all,  the  most  steady  and  powerful  force  in  our  politi- 
cal constitution)  had  been  told  that  Lord  Grey  was 
in  favor  of  the  "Papists,"  and  liked  Bonaparte  :  and 
the  consequence  was  a  long,  painful,  arduous  exile 
on  "the  other  side  of  the  table,"  —  the  last  place  any 
political  adventurer  would  wish  to  arrive  at.  Those 
who  have  no  bribes  will  never  charm  the  corrupt ; 
those  who  have  nothing  to  give  will  not  please  those 
who  desire  that  much  shall  be  given  them.  There 


26  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

is  an  observation  of  Kiel  Blane,  the  innkeeper,  in 
"Old  Mortality":  —  "'And  what  are  we  to  eat  our- 
selves, then,  father,'  asked  Jenny,  'when  we  hae 
sent  awa  the  haill  meal  in  the  ark  and  the  girnel  ? ' 
'We  maun  gar  wheat  flour  serve  us  for  a  blink/ 
said  Niel,  in  a  tone  of  resignation.  'It's  no  that  ill 
food,  though  far  frae  being  sae  hearty  or  kindly  to 
a  Scotchman's  stamach  as  the  curney  aitmeal  is :  the 
Englishers  live  amaist  upon't,' "  *  etc.  It  was  so 
with  the  Whigs,  —  they  were  obliged  to  put  up  with 
honest  and  virtuous  men,  and  they  wanted  able  men 
to  carry  on  a  keen  opposition ;  and  after  all,  they 
and  the  "Englishers"  liked  such  men  best. 

In  another  point  of  view,  too,  Horner's  life  was 
characteristic  of  those  times.  It  might  seem,  at  first 
sight,  odd  that  the  English  Whigs  should  go  to 
Scotland  to  find  a  literary  representative :  there  was 
no  place  where  Toryism  was  so  intense.  The  consti- 
tution of  Scotland  at  that  time  has  been  described  as 
the  worst  constitution  in  Europe :  the  nature  of  the 
representation  made  the  entire  country  a  government 
borough.  In  the  towns,  the  franchise  belonged  to  a 
close  and  self -electing  corporation,  who  were  always 
carefully  watched ;  the  county  representation,  anciently 
resting  on  a  property  qualification,  had  become  vested 
in  a  few  titular  freeholders,  —  something  like  lords 
of  the  manor,  only  that  they  might  have  no  manor, 
—  and  these,  even  with  the  addition  of  the  borough 
freeholders,  did  not  amount  to  three  thousand,  f  The 
whole  was  in  the  hands  of  Lord  Eldon's  party,  and 
the  entire  force,  influence,  and  patronage  of  govern- 
ment were  spent  to  maintain  and  keep  it  so.  By 
inevitable  consequence,  Liberalism  even  of  the  most 
moderate  kind  was  thought  almost  a  criminal  offense. 
The  mild  Horner  was  considered  a  man  of  "  very 
violent  opinions  "  J ;  Jeffrey's  father,  a  careful  and  dis- 
cerning parent,  was  so  anxious  to  shield  him  from 


*Chap.  xx.  t2488.     See  Vol.  iv.,  page  379.  — ED. 

J" Violent  political   opinions." —Lady   Holland's   "Memoirs   of   Sydney 
Smith,"  Chap.  ii. 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  27 

the  intellectual  taint  as  to  forbid  his  attendance  at 
Stewart's  lectures.  This  seems  an  odd  place  to  find 
the  eruption  of  a  Liberal  review.  Of  course  the 
necessary  effect  of  a  close  and  commonplace  tyranny 
was  to  engender  a  strong  reaction  in  searching  and 
vigorous  minds,  —  the  Liberals  of  the  North,  though 
far  fewer,  may  perhaps  have  been  stronger  Liberals 
than  those  of  the  South  ;  but  this  will  hardly  explain 
the  phenomenon.  The  reason  is  an  academical  one  : 
the  teaching  of  Scotland  seems  to  have  been  designed 
to  teach  men  to  write  essays  and  articles.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  education,  into  all  the  details  of  which 
it  is  not  now  pleasant  to  go,  but  which  may  be  ade- 
quately described  as  the  education  of  facts  and  the 
education  of  speculation.  The  system  of  facts  is  the 
English  system  :  the  strength  of  the  pedagogue  and 
the  agony  of  the  pupil  are  designed  to  engender  a 
good  knowledge  of  two  languages  ;  in  the  old  times, 
a  little  arithmetic ;  now  also  a  knowledge,  more  or 
less,  of  mathematics  and  mathematical  physics.  The 
positive  tastes  and  tendencies  of  the  English  mind 
confine  its  training  to  ascertained  learning  and  defi- 
nite science.  In  Scotland  the  case  has  long  been 
different :  the  time  of  a  man  like  Homer  was  taken 
up  with  speculations  like  these  :  — 

"I  have  long  been  feeding  my  ambition  with  the  prospect  of 
accomplishing,  at  some  future  period  of  my  life,  a  work  similar 
to  that  which  Sir  Francis  Bacon  executed  almost  two  hundred 
years  ago.  It  will  depend  upon  the  success  and  turn  of  my  specu- 
lations, whether  they  shall  be  thrown  into  the  form  of  a  discursive 
commentary  on  the  '  Instauratio  Magna '  of  that  illustrious  author, 
or  shall  be  entitled  to  an  original  form,  under  the  title  of  a  'View 
of  the  Limits  of  Human  Knowledge,  and  a  System  of  the  Principles 
of  Philosophical  Inquiry.'  I  shall  say  nothing  at  present  of  the 
audacity  —  " 

etc.,  etc.*  And  this  sort  of  planning,  which  is  the 
staple  of  his  youthful  biography,  was  really  accom- 
panied by  much  application  to  metaphysics,  history, 

*  Journal,  Feb.  2,  1800;  "Memoirs,"  Vol.  i. 


28  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

political  economy,  and  such  like  studies.  It  is  not  at 
all  to  our  present  purpose  to  compare  this  speculative 
and  indeterminate  kind  of  study  with  the  rigorous 
accurate  education  of  England.  The  fault  of  the 
former  is  sometimes  to  produce  a  sort  of  lecturer 
in  vacuo,  ignorant  of  exact  pursuits  and  diffusive  of 
vague  words ;  the  English  now  and  then  produce  a 
learned  creature  like  a  thistle,  prickly  with  all  facts 
and  incapable  of  all  fruit.  But  passing  by  this  gen- 
eral question,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  as  a  prepa- 
ration for  the  writing  of  various  articles,  the  system 
of  Edinburgh  is  enormously  superior  to  that  of  Cam- 
bridge. The  particular,  compact,  exclusive  learning 
of  England  is  inferior  in  this  respect  to  the  general, 
diversified,  omnipresent  information  of  the  North ; 
and  what  is  more,  the  speculative,  dubious  nature 
of  metaphysical  and  such  like  pursuits  tends,  in  a 
really  strong  mind,  to  cultivate  habits  of  independent 
thought  and  original  discussion.  A  bold  mind  so 
trained  will  even  wish  to  advance  its  peculiar  ideas, 
on  its  own  account,  in  a  written  and  special  form ; 
that  is,  as  we  said,  to  write  an  article.  Such  are  the 
excellences  in  this  respect  of  the  system  of  which 
Horner  is  an  example.  The  defects  tend  the  same 
way :  it  tends,  as  is  said,  to  make  a  man  fancy  he 
knows  everything;  "Well,  then,  at  least,"  it  may  be 
answered,  "I  can  write  an  article  on  everything." 

The  facility  and  boldness  of  the  habits  so  pro- 
duced were  curiously  exemplified  in  Lord  Jeffrey. 
During  the  first  six  years  of  the  Edinburgh  Revietu 
he  wrote  as  many  as  seventy-nine  articles ;  in  a  like 
period  afterwards  he  wrote  forty.  Any  one  who 
should  expect  to  find  a  pure  perfection  in  these  mis- 
cellaneous productions  should  remember  their  bulk. 
If  all  his  reviews  were  reprinted,  they  would  be  very 
many.  *  And  all  the  while  he  was  a  busy  lawyer, 
was  editor  of  the  Review,  did  the  business,  corrected 


*  There  were  just  300  in  all.      See  list  at  end  of  Vol.  i.  of  Cockburn's 
"Life."  — ED. 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  29 

the  proof  sheets ;  and  more  than  all  —  what  one  would 
have  thought  a  very  strong  man's  work  —  actually 
managed  Henry  Brougham.  You  must  not  criticize 
papers  like  these,  rapidly  written  in  the  hurry  of  life, 
as  you  would  the  painful  words  of  an  elaborate  sage, 
slowly  and  with  anxious  awfulness  instructing  man- 
kind. Some  things,  a  few  things,  are  for  eternity ; 
some,  and  a  good  many,  are  for  time.  We  do  not 
expect  the  everlastingness  of  the  Pyramids  from  the 
vibratory  grandeur  of  a  Tyburnian  mansion. 

The  truth  is,  that  Lord  Jeffrey  was  something  of 
a  Whig  critic.  We  have  hinted  that  among  the 
peculiarities  of  that  character,  an  excessive  partiality 
for  new,  arduous,  overwhelming,  original  excellence 
was  by  no  means  to  be  numbered :  their  tendency 
inclining  to  the  quiet  footsteps  of  custom,  they  like 
to  trace  the  exact  fulfillment  of  admitted  rules,  a 
just  accordance  with  the  familiar  features  of  ancient 
merit.  But  they  are  most  averse  to  mysticism :  a 
clear,  precise,  discriminating  intellect  shrinks  at  once 
from  the  symbolic,  the  unbounded,  the  indefinite. 
The  misfortune  is,  that  mysticism  is  true.  There 
certainly  are  kinds  of  truth,  borne  in  as  it  were 
instinctively  on  the  human  intellect,  most  influential 
on  the  character  and  the  heart,  yet  hardly  capable 
of  stringent  statement,  difficult  to  limit  by  an  elabo- 
rate definition.  Their  course  is  shadowy ;  the  mind 
seems  rather  to  have  seen  than  to  see  them,  more  to 
feel  after  than  definitely  apprehend  them.  They  com- 
monly involve  an  infinite  element,  which  of  course 
cannot  be  stated  precisely;  or  else  a  first  principle  — 
an  original  tendency  —  of  our  intellectual  constitu- 
tion, which  it  is  impossible  not  to  feel,  and  yet  which 
it  is  hard  to  extricate  in  terms  and  words.  Of  this 
latter  kind  is  what  has  been  called  the  "religion  of 
nature " ;  or  more  exactly,  perhaps,  the  religion  of 
the  imagination.  This  is  an  interpretation  of  the 
world ;  according  to  it,  the  beauty  of  the  universe 
has  a  meaning,  its  grandeur  a  soul,  its  sublimity  an 


30         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

expression.  As  we  gaze  on  the  faces  of  those  whom 
we  love ;  as  we  watch  the  light  of  life  in  the  dawning 
of  their  eyes  and  the  play  of  their  features  and  the 
wildness  of  their  animation ;  as  we  trace  in  changing 
lineaments  a  varying  sign ;  as  a  charm  and  a  thrill 
seem  to  run  along  the  tone  of  a  voice,  to  haunt  the 
mind  with  a  mere  word  ;  as  a  tone  seems  to  roam  in 
the  ear ;  as  a  trembling  fancy  hears  words  that  are 
unspoken,  —  so  in  nature  the  mystical  sense  finds  a 
motion  in  the  mountain,  and  a  power  in  the  waves, 
and  a  meaning  in  the  long  white  line  of  the  shore, 
and  a  thought  in  the  blue  of  heaven,  and  a  gushing 
soul  in  the  buoyant  light,  an  unbounded  being  in  the 
vast  void  air,  and 

"Wakeful  watchings  in  the  pointed  stars." 

There  is  a  philosophy  in  this  which  might  be  ex- 
plained, if  explaining  were  to  our  purpose  :  it  might 
be  advanced  that  there  are  original  sources  of  ex- 
pression in  the  essential  grandeur  and  sublimity 
of  nature,  of  an  analogous  (though  fainter)  kind  to 
those  familiar,  inexplicable  signs  by  which  we  trace 
in  the  very  face  and  outward  lineaments  of  man  the 
existence  and  working  of  the  mind  within.  But  be 
this  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  Mr.  Wordsworth 
preached  this  kind  of  religion,  and  that  Lord  Jeffrey 
did  not  believe  a  word  of  it :  his  cool,  sharp,  collected 
mind  revolted  from  its  mysticism,  his  detective  intel- 
ligence was  absorbed  in  its  apparent  fallaciousness,  his 
light  humor  made  sport  with  the  sublimities  of  the 
preacher ;  his  love  of  perspicuity  was  vexed  by  its 
indefiiiiteness,  the  precise  philosopher  was  amazed  at 
its  mystic  unintelligibility.  Finding  a  little  fault  was 
doubtless  not  unpleasant  to  him :  the  reviewer's  pen  — 
</>6voc  ripueaoiv*  —  has  seldom  been  more  poignantly 
wielded.  "If,"  he  was  told,  "you  could  be  alarmed 
into  the  semblance  of  modesty,  you  would  charm 

*  "  Death  to  heroes." 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  31 

everybody;  but  remember  my  joke  against  you" 
(Sydney  Smith  loquitur)  "about  the  moon:  'D — n  the 
solar  system!  bad  light  —  planets  too  distant — pes- 
tered with  comets  :  feeble  contrivance ;  could  make  a 
better  with  great  ease.'"*  Yet  we  do  not  mean  that 
in  this  great  literary  feud,  either  of  the  combatants 
had  all  the  right  or  gained  all  the  victory.  The  world 
has  given  judgment ;  both  Mr.  Wordsworth  and  Lord 
Jeffrey  have  received  their  reward.  The  one  had  his 
own  generation,  the  laughter  of  men,  the  applause 
of  drawing-rooms,  the  concurrence  of  the  crowd ;  the 
other  a  succeeding  age,  the  fond  enthusiasm  of  secret 
students,  the  lonely  rapture  of  lonely  minds.  And 
each  has  received  according  to  his  kind.  If  all  cul- 
tivated men  speak  differently  because  of  the  existence 
of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge ;  if  not  a  thoughtful 
English  book  has  appeared  for  forty  years  without 
some  trace,  for  good  or  evil,  of  their  influence ;  if 
sermon  writers  subsist  upon  their  thoughts ;  if  "sacred 
poets"  thrive  by  translating  their  weaker  portion  into 
the  speech  of  women ;  if,  when  all  this  is  over,  some 
sufficient  part  of  their  writing  will  ever  be  fitting 
food  for  wild  musing  and  solitary  meditation,  —  surely 
this  is  because  they  possessed  the  inner  nature, 
"an  intense  and  glowing  mind,"  "the  vision  and  the 
faculty  divine,  "t  But  if  perchance  in  their  weaker 
moments  the  great  authors  of  the  "Lyrical  Ballads" 
did  ever  imagine  that  the  world  was  to  pause  because 
of  their  verses;  that  "Peter  Bell"  would  be  popular 
in  drawing-rooms,  that  "Christabel"  would  be  perused 
in  the  City,  that  people  of  fashion  would  make  a 
handbook  of  the  "Excursion,"  —  it  was  well  for  them 
to  be  told  at  once  that  this  was  not  so.  Nature 
ingeniously  prepared  a  shrill  artificial  voice,  which 
spoke  in  season  and  out  of  season,  enough  and  more 
than  enough,  what  will  ever  be  the  idea  of  the  cities 
of  the  plain  concerning  those  who  live  alone  among 

*  Letter  17, ,  1806;  "Memoir,"  Vol.  ii. 

t  Wordsworth,  "Excursion,"  Book  i. 


32  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  mountains,  of  the  frivolous  concerning  the  grave, 
of  the  gregarious  concerning  the  recluse,  of  those 
who  laugh  concerning  those  who  laugh  not,  of  the 
common  concerning  the  uncommon,  of  those  who 
lend  on  usury  concerning  those  who  lend  not,  the 
notion  of  the  world  of  those  whom  it  will  not  reckon 
among  the  righteous, — it  said,  "This  won't  do!"* 
And  so  in  all  time  will  the  lovers  of  polished  Lib- 
eralism speak,  concerning  the  intense  and  lonely 
prophet. 

Yet  if  Lord  Jeffrey  had  the  natural  infirmities 
of  a  Whig  critic,  he  certainly  had  also  its  extrinsic 
and  political  advantages.  Especially  at  Edinburgh  the 
Whigs  wanted  a  literary  man.  The  Liberal  party  in 
Scotland  had  long  groaned  under  political  exclusion  ; 
they  had  suffered,  with  acute  mortification,  the  heavy 
sway  of  Henry  Dundas  :  but  they  had  been  compen- 
sated by  a  literary  supremacy,  —  in  the  book  world 
they  enjoyed  a  domination.  On  a  sudden  this  was 
rudely  threatened  :  the  fame  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  was 
echoed  from  the  Southern  world,  and  appealed  to 
every  national  sentiment,  —  to  the  inmost  heart  of 
every  Scotchman.  And  what  a  ruler  !  a  lame  Tory, 
a  jocose  Jacobite,  a  laugher  at  Liberalism,  a  scoffer 
at  metaphysics,  an  unbeliever  in  political  economy  ! 
What  a  Gothic  ruler  for  the  modern  Athens !  was 
this  man  to  reign  over  them  ?  It  would  not  have 
been  like  human  nature  if  a  strong  and  intellectual 
party  had  not  soon  found  a  clever  and  noticeable 
rival.  Poets,  indeed,  are  not  made  "to  order";  but 
Byron,  speaking  the  sentiment  of  his  time  and  circle, 
counted  reviewers  their  equals.  If  a  Tory  produced 
"  Marmion,"  a  Whig  wrote  the  best  article  upon  it : 
Scott  might  (so  ran  Liberal  speech)  be  the  best  liv- 
ing writer  of  fiction,  Jeffrey  clearly  was  the  most 
shrewd  and  accomplished  of  literary  critics. 

*The  first  words  of  Jeffrey's  review  of  the  "Excursion  "  are,  "This  will 
never  do."  —  B.  Excoriated  ad  nauseam.  It  was  the  opening  article  in  the 
Edinburgh  for  November,  1814.  —  ED. 


THE   FIRST  EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  33 

And  though  this  was  an  absurd  delusion,  Lord 
Jeffrey  was  no  e very-day  man.  He  invented  the 
trade  of  editorship  :  before  him  an  editor  was  a  book- 
seller's drudge,  he  is  now  a  distinguished  function- 
ary. If  Jeffrey  was  not  a  great  critic,  he  had  what 
very  great  critics  have  wanted,  —  the  art  of  writing 
what  most  people  would  think  good  criticism.  He 
might  not  know  his  subject,  but  he  knew  his  read- 
ers :  people  like  to  read  ideas  which  they  can  imagine 
to  have  been  their  own.  "Why  does  Scarlett  always 
persuade  the  jury  ? "  asked  a  rustic  gentleman. 
"Because  there  are  twelve  Scarletts  in  the  jury-box," 
replied  an  envious  advocate.*  What  Scarlett  was 
in  law,  Jeffrey  was  in  criticism  :  he  could  become 
that  which  his  readers  could  not  avoid  being.  He 
was  neither  a  pathetic  writer  nor  a  profound  writer ; 
but  he  was  a  quick-eyed,  bustling,  black-haired,  saga- 
cious, agreeable  man  of  the  world.  He  had  his  day, 
and  was  entitled  to  his  day ;  but  a  gentle  oblivion 
must  now  cover  his  already  subsiding  reputation. 

Sydney  Smith  was  an  after-dinner  writer :  his 
words  have  a  flow,  a  vigor,  an  expression,  which  is 
not  given  'to  hungry  mortals ;  you  seem  to  read  of 
good  wine,  of  good  cheer,  of  beaming  and  buoyant 
enjoyment.  There  is  little  trace  of  labor  in  his  com- 
position :  it  is  poured  forth  like  an  unceasing  torrent, 
rejoicing  daily  to  run  its  course.  And  what  courage 
there  is  in  it !  There  is  as  much  variety  of  pluck 
in  writing  across  a  sheet  as  in  riding  across  a  coun- 
try. Cautious  men  have  many  adverbs,  "usually," 
"nearly,"  "almost":  safe  men  begin,  "It  may  be 
advanced—  ";  you  never  know  precisely  what  their 
premises  are  nor  what  their  conclusion  is ;  they  go 
tremulously  like  a  timid  rider  ;  they  turn  hither  and 
thither  ;  they  do  not  go  straight  across  a  subject,  like 
a  masterly  mind.  A  few  sentences  are  enough  for  a 
master  of  sentences  ;  a  practical  topic  wants  rough 
vigor  and  strong  exposition.  This  is  the  writing  of 

*"A  thirteenth  juryman."  —  Brougham,  "Statesmen  of  George  III." 
VOL.  I.— a 


34  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Sydney  Smith ;  it  is  suited  to  the  broader  kind  of 
important  questions.  For  anything  requiring  fine 
nicety  of  speculation,  long  elaborateness  of  deduction, 
evanescent  sharpness  of  distinction,  neither  his  style 
nor  his  mind  was  fit :  he  had  no  patience  for  long 
argument,  no  acuteness  for  delicate  precision,  no 
fangs  for  recondite  research.  Writers,  like  teeth,  are 
divided  into  incisors  and  grinders ;  Sydney  Smith 
was  a  molar :  he  did  not  run  a  long  sharp  argument 
into  the  interior  of  a  question  ;  he  did  not,  in  the 
common  phrase,  go  deeply  into  it :  but  he  kept  it 
steadily  under  the  contact  of  a  strong,  capable, 
heavy,  jaw-like  understanding,  —  pressing  its  surface, 
effacing  its  intricacies,  grinding  it  down.  Yet  as 
we  said,  this  is  done  without  toil :  the  play  of  the 
molar  is  instinctive  and  placid ;  he  could  not  help  it ; 
it  would  seem  that  he  had  an  enjoyment  in  it. 

The  story  is,  that  he  liked  a  bright  light ;  that 
when  he  was  a  poor  parson  in  the  country  he  used, 
not  being  able  to  afford  more  delicate  luminaries,  to 
adorn  his  drawing-room  with  a  hundred  little  lamps 
of  tin  metal  and  mutton  fat.*  When  you  know  this, 
you  see  it  in  all  his  writings :  there  is  the  same 
preference  of  perspicuity  throughout  them  ;  elegance, 
fine  savor,  sweet  illustration,  are  quite  secondary. 
His  only  question  as  to  an  argument  was,  "Will  it 
tell?"  as  to  an  example,  "Will  it  exemplify?"  Like 
what  is  called  "push"  in  a  practical  man,  his  style 
goes  straight  to  its  object :  it  is  not  restrained  by  the 
gentle  hindrances,  the  delicate  decorums  of  refining 
natures.  There  is  nothing  more  characteristic  of  the 
Scandinavian  mythology  than  that  it  had  a  god  with 
a  hammer ;  you  have  no  better  illustration  of  our 
English  humor  than  the  great  success  of  this  huge 
and  healthy  organization. 

There  is  something  about  this  not  exactly  to  the 
Whig  taste :  they  do  not  like  such  broad  fun,  and 
rather  dislike  unlimited  statement.  Lord  Melbourne, 


*Lady  Holland's  "Memoir,"  Chaps,  vi.,  ix. 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  35 

it  is  plain,  declined  to  make  him  a  bishop :  *  in  this 
there  might  be  a  vestige  of  Canningite  prejudice ; 
but  on  the  whole,  there  was  the  distinction  between 
the  two  men  which  there  is  between  the  loud  wit 
and  the  recherche  thinker,  between  the  bold  contro- 
versialist and  the  discriminative  statesman.  A  refined 
noblesse  can  hardly  respect  a  humorist :  he  amuses 
them,  and  they  like  him,  but  they  are  puzzled  to 
know  whether  he  does  not  laugh  at  them  as  well  as 
with  them ;  and  the  notion  of  being  laughed  at,  ever 
or  on  any  score,  is  alien  to  their  shy  decorum  and 
suppressed  pride.  But  in  a  broader  point  of  view, 
and  taking  a  wider  range  of  general  character,  there 
was  a  good  deal  in  common :  more  than  any  one 
else,  Sydney  Smith  was  Liberalism  in  life.  Somebody 
has  defined  Liberalism  as  "the  spirit  of  the  world": 
it  represents  its  genial  enjoyment,  its  wise  sense,  its 
steady  judgment,  its  preference  of  the  near  to  the 
farj  of  the  seen  to  the  unseen ;  it  represents,  too,  its 
shrinking  from  difficult  dogma,  from  stern  statement, 
from  imperious  superstition.  What  health  is  to  the 
animal,  Liberalism  is  to  the  polity :  it  is  a  principle  of 
fermenting  enjoyment,  running  over  all  the  nerves, 
inspiring  the  frame,  happy  in  its  mind,  easy  in  its 
place,  glad  to  behold  the  sun.  All  this  Sydney  Smith, 
as  it  were,  personified.  The  biography  just  published 
of  him  will  be  very  serviceable  to  his  fame :  he  has 
been  regarded  too  much  as  a  fashionable  jester  and 
metropolitan  wit  of  society ;  we  have  now  for  the 
first  time  a  description  of  him  as  he  was,  —  equally 
at  home  in  the  crude  world  of  Yorkshire  and  amid 
the  quintessential  refinements  of  Mayfair.  It  is  im- 
possible to  believe  that  he  did  not  give  the  epithet 
to  his  parish  :  it  is  now  called  Foston  le  Clay.  It 
was  a  "mute  inglorious "f  Sydney  of  the  district 

*And  said  it  was  one  of  the  things  he  was  sorriest  for  in  memory;  but 
Sydney  always  declared  he  would  not  have  taken  the  position.  "Memoir," 
Chap.  ix.  —  ED. 

f'Some  mute  inglorious  Milton."— Gray's  "Elegy." 


36  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

that  invented  the  name,  if  it  is  really  older  than  the 
century :  the  place  has  an  obtuse  soil,  inhabited  by 
stiff-clayed  Yorkshiremen.  There  was  nobody  in  the 
parish  to  speak  to,  only  peasants,  farmers,  and  such 
like  (what  the  clergy  call  "parishioners"),  and  an  old 
clerk  who  thought  every  one  who  came  from  London 
a  fool,  "but  you,  Mr.  Smith,  I  see  you  are  no  fool."* 
This  was  the  sort  of  life  :  — 

"I  turned  schoolmaster  to  educate  my  son,  as  T  could  not  afford 
to  send  him  to  school.  Mrs.  Sydney  turned  schoolmistress  to  edu- 
cate my  girls,  as  I  could  not  afford  a  governess.  I  turned  farmer, 
as  I  could  not  let  my  land.  A  man-servant  was  too  expensive,  so 
I  caught  up  a  little  garden-girl  made  like  a  milestone,  christened 
her  '  Bunch,'  put  .a  napkin  in  her  hand,  and  made  her  my  butler  ; 
the  girls  taught  her  to  read,  Mrs.  Sydney  to  wait,  and  I  under- 
took her  morals :  Bunch  became  the  best  butler  in  the  county. 

"I  had  little  furniture,  so  I  bought  a  cart-load  of  deals;  took  a 
carpenter  (who  came  to  me  for  parish  relief),  called  Jack  Robinson, 
with  a  face  like  a  full  moon,  into  my  service ;  established  him  in 
a  barn,  and  said,  'Jack,  furnish  my  house.'  You  see  the  result! 

"At  last  it  was  suggested  that  a  carriage  was  much  wanted  in 
the  establishment.  After  diligent  search,  I  discovered  in  the  back 
settlements  of  a  York  coach-maker  an  ancient  green  chariot,  sup- 
posed to  have  been  the  earliest  invention  of  the  kind ;  I  brought  it 
home  in  triumph  to  my  admiring  family.  Being  somewhat  dilapi- 
dated, the  village  tailor  lined  it,  the  village  blacksmith  repaired  it : 
nay,  but  for  Mrs.  Sydney's  earnest  entreaties,  we  believe  the  village 
painter  would  have  exercised  his  genius  upon  the  exterior ;  it  es- 
caped this  danger,  however,  and  the  result  was  wonderful.  Each 
year  added  to  its  charms  ;  it  grew  younger  and  younger ;  a  new 
wheel,  a  new  spring ;  I  christened  it  the  Immortal ;  it  was  known 
all  over  the  neighborhood ;  the  village  boys  cheered  it,  and  the  vil- 
lage dogs  barked  at  it:  but  '  Ftiber  mece  fortunes'1  was  my  motto, 
and  we  had  no  false  shame. 

"Added  to  all  these  domestic  cares,  I  was  village  parson,  vil- 
lage doctor,  village  comforter,  village  magistrate,  and  Edinburgh- 
Reviewer  ;  so  you  see  I  had  not  much  time  left  on  my  hands  to 
regret  London."  t 

It  is  impossible  that  this  should  not  at  once  re- 
mind us  of  the  life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott :  there  is  the 


*  "Memoir,"  Chap.  v.  t  Ibid.,  Chap.  vii. 


THE  FIRST   EDINBURGH  REVIEWERS.  37 

same  strong  sense,  the  same  glowing,  natural  pleas- 
ure, the  same  power  of  dealing  with  men,  the  same 
power  of  diffusing  common  happiness.  Both  enjoyed 
as  much  in  a  day  as  an  ordinary  man  in  a  month. 
The  term  "animal  spirits"  peculiarly  expresses  this 
bold  enjoyment :  it  seems  to  come  from  a  principle 
intermediate  between  the  mind  and  the  body,  —  to  be 
hardly  intellectual  enough  for  the  soul,  and  yet  too 
permeating  and  aspiring  for  crude  matter.  Of  course 
there  is  an  immense  imaginative  world  in  Scott's 
existence  to  which  Sydney  Smith  had  no  claim  :  but 
they  met  upon  the  present  world  ;  they  enjoyed  the 
spirit  of  life;  "they  loved  the  world,  and  the  world 
them ; "  *  they  did  not  pain  themselves  with  imma- 
terial speculation,  —  roast  beef  was  an  admitted  fact. 
A  certain,  even  excessive  practical  caution  which  is 
ascribed  to  the  Englishman,  f  Scott  would  have  been 
the  better  for ;  yet  his  biography  would  have  been 
the  worse.  There  is  nothing  in  the  life  before  us 
comparable  in  interest  to  the  tragic,  gradual  crack- 
ing of  the  great  mind  ;  the  overtasking  of  the  great 
capital,  and  the  ensuing  failure ;  the  spectacle  of 
heaving  genius  breaking  in  the  contact  with  misfor- 
tune. The  anticipation  of  this  pain  increases  the 
pleasure  of  the  reader ;  the  commencing  threads  of 
coming  calamity  shade  the  woof  of  pleasure ;  the 
proximity  of  suffering  softens  the  v(3pi$,  —  the  terrible, 
fatiguing  energy  of  enjoyment. 

A  great  deal  of  excellent  research  has  been  spent 
on  the  difference  between  "humor"  and  "wit";  into 
which  metaphysical  problem  "our  limits,"  of  course, 
forbid  us  to  enter.  There  is,  however,  between  them 
the  distinction  of  dry  sticks  and  green  sticks.  There 
is  in  humor  a  living  energy,  a  diffused  potency,  a 

*"I  have  not  loved  the  world,  nor  the  world  me."  —  Byron,  "Childe 
Harold,"  Canto  iii.,  stanzas  cxiii.,  cxiv. 

t  Besides  the  tributes  to  his  business  sagacity  and  thrift  in  his  daughter's 
Memoir,  Jeffrey  says  (in  the  letter  before  referred  to)  that  he  was  the  most 
despondent  of  all  about  the  Review,  though  he  was  the  first  to  suggest  its 
establishment.  —  ED. 


38  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

noble  sap;  it  grows  upon  the  character  of  the  humor- 
ist. Wit  is  part  of  the  machinery  of  the  intellect ; 
as  Madame  de  Stael  says,  "  La  gaiete  de  Fesprit  est 
facile  a  tous  les  hommes  qui  ont  de  Fesprit."*  We 
wonder  Mr.  Babbage  does  not  invent  a  punning 
engine :  it  is  just  as  possible  as  a  calculating  one. 
Sydney  Smith's  mirth  was  essentially  humorous :  it 
clings  to  the  character  of  the  man  ;  as  with  the  say- 
ings of  Dr.  Johnson,  there  is  a  species  of  personality 
attaching  to  it ;  the  word  is  more  graphic  because 
Sydney  Smith — that  man  being  the  man  that  he 
was — said  it,  than  it  would  have  been  if  said  by  any 
one  else.  In  a  desponding  moment,  he  would  have  it 
he  was  none  the  better  for  the  jests  which  he  made, 
any  more  than  a  bottle  for  the  wine  which  passed 
through  it :  this  is  a  true  description  of  many  a  wit, 
but  he  was  very  unjust  in  attributing  it  to  himself. 

Sydney  Smith  is  often  compared  to  Swift ;  but  this 
only  shows  with  how  little  thought  our  common  crit- 
icism is  written.  The  two  men  have-  really  nothing 
in  common,  except  that  they  were  both  high  in  the 
Church  and  both  wrote  amusing  letters  about  Ire- 
land. Of  course,  to  the  great  constructive  and  elabo- 
rative  power  displayed  in  Swift's  longer  works,  Sydney 
Smith  has  no  pretension,  —  he  could  not  have  writ- 
ten "Gulliver's  Travels";  but  so  far  as  the  two  series 
of  Irish  letters  goes,  it  seems  plain  that  he  has  the 
advantage.  "Plymley's"  letters  are  true:  the  treat- 
ment may  be  incomplete, — the  Catholic  religion  may 
have  latent  dangers  and  insidious  attractions  which 
are  not  there  mentioned,  —  but  the  main  principle  is 
sound ;  the  common-sense  of  religious  toleration  is 
hardly  susceptible  of  better  explanation.  "Drapier's" 
letters,  on  the  contrary,  are  essentially  absurd  ;  they 
are  a  clever  appeal  to  ridiculous  prejudices.  Who 
cares  now  for  a  disputation  on  the  evils  to  be 
apprehended  a  hundred  years  ago  from  adulterated 

*"Gayety  of  spirit  is  easy  to  all  spirited  men."  —  "De  la  Litte"rature," 
Chap,  xiv.,  second  paragraph. 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  39 

halfpence,  especially  when  we  know  that  the  half- 
pence were  not  adulterated,  and  that  if  they  had  been, 
those  evils  would  never  have  arisen  ?  Any  one,  too, 
who  wishes  to  make  a  collection  of  currency  crotch- 
ets, will  find  those  letters  worth  his  attention.  No 
doubt  there  is  a  clever  affectation  of  common-sense, 
as  in  all  of  Swift's  political  writings,  and  the  style 
has  an  air  of  business ;  yet  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  no  passages  which  any  one  would  now  care  to 
quote  for  their  manner  and  their  matter,  and  there 
are  many  in  "Plymley"  that  will  be  constantly  cited 
so  long  as  existing  controversies  are  at  all  remem- 
bered. The  whole  genius  of  the  two  writers  is  em- 
phatically opposed.  Sydney  Smith's  is  the  ideal  of 
popular,  buoyant,  riotous  fun :  it  cries  and  laughs 
with  boisterous  mirth  ;  it  rolls  hither  and  thither  like 
a  mob,  with  elastic  and  commonplace  joy.  Swift  was 
a  detective  in  a  dean's  wig :  he  watched  the  mob  ; 
his  whole  wit  is  a  kind  of  dexterous  indication  of 
popular  frailties  ;  he  hated  the  crowd ;  he  was  a  spy 
on  beaming  smiles,  and  a  common  informer  against 
genial  enjoyment.  His  whole  essence  was  a  soreness 
against  mortality.  Show  him  innocent  mirth,  he 
would  say,  How  absurd  !  He  was  painfully  wretched, 
no  doubt,  in  himself.  Perhaps,  as  they  say,  he  had 
no  heart :  but  his  mind,  his  brain  had  a  frightful 
capacity  for  secret  pain  ;  his  sharpness  was  the  sharp- 
ness of  disease,  his  power  the  sore  acumen  of  morbid 
wretchedness.  It  is  impossible  to  fancy  a  parallel 
more  proper  to  show  the  excellence,  the  unspeakable 
superiority  of  a  buoyant  and  bounding  writer. 

At  the  same  time,  it  is  impossible  to  give  to 
Sydney  Smith  the  highest  rank  even  as  a  humorist. 
Almost  all  his  humor  has  reference  to  the  incon- 
gruity of  special  means  to  special  ends.  The  notion 
of  "Plymley"  is  want  of  conformity  between  the 
notions  of  "my  brother  Abraham"  and  the  means 
of  which  he  makes  use  ;  of  the  quiet  clergyman,  who 
was  always  told  he  was  a  bit  of  a  goose,  advocating 


40  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

conversion  by  muskets  and  stopping  Bonaparte  by 
Peruvian  bark.  The  notion  of  the  letters  to  Arch- 
deacon Singleton  is,  a  bench  of  bishops  placidly  and 
pleasantly  destroying  the  Church.  It  is  the  same 
with  most  of  his  writings :  even  when  there  is 
nothing  absolutely  practical  in  the  idea,  the  subject  is 
from  the  scenery  of  practice,  from  concrete  entities, 
near  institutions,  superficial  facts.  You  might  quote 
a  hundred  instances;  here  is  one:  —  "A  gentleman, 
in  speaking  of  a  nobleman's  wife  of  great  rank  and 
fortune,  lamented  very  much  that  she  had  no  children. 
A  medical  gentleman  who  was  present  observed  that 
to  have  no  children  was  a  great  misfortune,  but  he 
had  often  observed  it  was  hereditary  in  families."* 
This  is  what  we  mean  by  saying  his  mirth  lies  in 
the  superficial  relations  of  phenomena  (some  will  say 
we  are  pompous,  like  the  medical  man)  ;  in  the  rela- 
tion of  one  external  fact  to  another  external  fact, 
of  one  detail  of  common  life  to  another  detail  of 
common  life.  But  this  is  not  the  highest  topic  of 
humor.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the  universe  is  absurd ; 
there  seems  an  unalterable  contradiction  between  the 
human  mind  and  its  employments.  How  can  a  soul 
be  a  merchant  ?  What  relation  to  an  immortal  being 
have  the  price  of  linseed,  the  fall  of  butter,  the  tare 
on  tallow,  or  the  brokerage  on  hemp  ?  Can  an  un- 
dying creature  debit  "  petty  expenses,"  and  charge 
for  "carriage  paid"?  'All  the  world's  a  stage;" 
the  "satchel"  and  the  "shining  morning  face,"  the 
"strange  oaths,"  the  "bubble  reputation,"  the 

"Eyes  severe  and  beard  of  formal  cut, 
Full  of  wise  saws  and  modern  instances,"!  — 

can  these  things  be  real  ?  Surely  they  are  acting. 
What  relation  have  they  to  the  truth  as  we  see  it 
in  theory  ?  what  connection  with  our  certain  hopes, 
our  deep  desires,  our  craving  and  infinite  thought  ? 

*  Anecdote  at  end  of  Vol.  i.  of  the  "Memoir." 

t"As  You  Like  It,"  ii.  7.    So  quoted  as  to  make  nonsense  of  it. —  ED. 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  41 

"In  respect  of  itself,  it  is  a  good  life;  but  in  respect 
it  is  a  shepherd's  life,  it  is  naught."*  The  soul  ties 
its  shoe  ;  the  mind  washes  its  hands  in  a  basin.  All 
is  incongruous. 

Shallow.  Certain,  'tis  certain  ;  very  sure,  very  sure  :  death,  as 
the  Psalmist  saith,  is  certain  to  all ;  all  shall  die.  —  How  a  good 
yoke  of  bullocks  at  Stamford  fair? 

Silence.     Truly,  cousin,  I  was  not  there. 

Shallow.  Death  is  certain.  —  Is  old  Double  of  your  town  living 
yet? 

Silence.     Dead,  sir. 

Shallow.  Dead  !  See  !  See  !  A  drew  a  good  bow  —  and  dead  ! 
A  shot  a  fine  shoot :  John  a  Gaunt  loved  him  well,  and  betted 
much  money  on  his  head.  —  Dead  !  a  would  have  clapped  i'  the 
clout  at  twelvescore  ;  and  carried  you  a  forehand  shaft  a  fourteen 
and  fourteen-and-a-half,  that  it  would  have  done  a  man's  heart 
good  to  see.  —  How  a  score  of  ewes  now  ? 

Silence.  Thereafter  as  they  be :  a  score  of  good  ewes  may  be 
worth  ten  pounds. 

Shallow.     And  is  old  Double  dead  !  t 

It  is  because  Sydney  Smith  had  so  little  of  this 
Shakespearian  humor  that  there  is  a  glare  in  his 
pages,  and  that  in  the  midst  of  his  best  writing  we 
sigh  for  the  soothing  superiority  of  quieter  writers. 

Sydney  Smith  was  not  only  the  wit  of  the  first 
Edinburgh,  but  likewise  the  divine ;  he  was,  to  use 
his  own  expression,  the  only  clergyman  who  in  those 
days  "turned  out"  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  Whigs. 
In  some  sort  this  was  not  so  important :  a  curious 
abstinence  from  religious  topics  characterizes  the 
original  Review;  there  is  a  wonderful  omission  of 
this  most  natural  topic  of  speculation  in  the  lives  of 
Horner  and  Jeffrey.  In  truth,  it  would  seem  that, 
living  in  the  incessant  din  of  a  Calvinistic  country, 
the  best  course  for  thoughtful  and  serious  men  was 
to  be  silent, — at  least  they  instinctively  thought  so ; 
they  felt  no  involuntary  call  to  be  theological  teach- 
ers themselves,  and  gently  recoiled  from  the  coarse 


•"As  You  Like  It,"  iii.  2.  t"2  Henry  IV.,"  ill.  2. 


42  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

admonition  around  them.  Even  in  the  present  milder 
time,  few  cultivated  persons  willingly  think  on  the 
special  dogmas  of  distinct  theology.  They  do  not 
deny  them,  but  they  live  apart  from  them ;  they  do 
not  disbelieve  them,  but  they  are  silent  when  they 
are  stated.  They  do  not  question  the  existence  of 
Kamtchatka,  but  they  have  no  call  to  busy  them- 
selves with  Kamtchatka :  they  abstain  from  peculiar 
tenets.  Nor  in  truth  is  this,  though  much  aggra- 
vated by  existing  facts,  a  mere  accident  of  this 
age, — there  are  some  people  to  whom  such  a  course 
of  conduct  is  always  natural :  there  are  certain  per- 
sons who  do  not,  as  it  would  seem  cannot,  feel  all 
that  others  feel ;  who  have,  so  to  say,  no  ear  for 
much  of  religion,  —  who  are  in  some  sort  out  of  its 
reach. 

"It  is  impossible,"  says  a  late  divine  of  the  Church  of  England, 
"not  to  observe  that  innumerable  persons  —  may  we  not  say  the 
majority  of  mankind?  —  who  have  a  belief  in  God  and  immortality, 
have  nevertheless  hardly  any  consciousness  of  the  peculiar  doctrines 
of  the  gospel.  They  seem  to  live  aloof  from  them  in  the  routine 
of  business  or  of  pleasure,  '  the  common  life  of  all  men ; '  not 
without  a  sense  of  right  and  a  rule  of  truth  and  honesty,  yet 
insensible"  to  much  which  we  need  not  name.  "They  have  never 
in  their  whole  lives  experienced  the  love  of  God  or  the  sense  of 
sin  or  the  need  of  forgiveness.  Often  they  are  remarkable  for  the 
purity  of  their  morals ;  many  of  them  have  strong  and  disinterested 
attachments  and  quick  human  sympathies,  sometimes  a  stoical 
feeling  of  uprightness  or  a  peculiar  sensitiveness  to  dishonor.  It 
would  be  a  mistake  to  say  they  are  without  religion  :  they  join  in 
its  public  acts ;  they  are  offended  at  profaneness  or  impiety ;  they 
are  thankful  for  the  blessings  of  life,  and  do  not  rebel  against  its 
misfortunes.  Such  men  meet  us  at  every  turn ;  they  are  those 
whom  we  know  and  associate  with, — honest  in  their  dealings, 
respectable  in  their  lives,  decent  in  their  conversation.  The  Scrip- 
ture speaks  to  us  of  two  classes,  represented  by  the  church  and 
the  world,  the  wheat  and  the  tares,  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the 
friends  and  enemies  of  God :  we  cannot  say  in  which  of  these 
two  divisions  we  should  find  a  place  for  them."* 


*" Natural  Religion,"  in  Jowett's  "Epistles  of  St.  Paul,"  Vol.  ii.,  fol- 
lowing Chap.  xvi.  of  Romans, 


THE   FIRST   EDINBURGH   REVIEWERS.  43 

They  believe  always  a  kind  of  "natural  religion." 
Now,  these  are  what  we  may  call,  in  the  language 
of  the  past,*  Liberals.  Those  who  can  remember  or 
who  will  reread  our  delineation  of  the  Whig  char- 
acter may  observe  its  conformity :  there  is  the  same 
purity  and  delicacy,  the  same  tranquil  sense ;  an 
equal  want  of  imagination,  of  impulsive  enthusiasm, 
of  shrinking  fear.  You  need  not  speak,  like  the  above 
writer,  of  "peculiar  doctrines":  the  phenomenon  is 
no  specialty  of  a  particular  creed.  Glance  over  the 
whole  of  history  :  as  the  classical  world  stood  beside 
the  Jewish,  as  Horace  beside  St.  Paul,  like  the  heavy 
ark  and  the  buoyant  waves, — so  are  men  in  contrast 
with  one  another.  You  cannot  imagine  a  classical 
Isaiah  ;  you  cannot  fancy  a  Whig  St.  Dominic  ;  there 
is  no  such  thing  as  a  Liberal  Augustine.  The  deep 
sea  of  mysticism  lies  opposed  to  some  natures :  in 
some  moods  it  is  a  sublime  wonder,  in  others  an 
"impious  ocean,"  f  —  they  will  never  put  forth  011  it 
at  any  time. 

All  this  is  intelligible,  and  in  a  manner  beautiful, 
as  a  character;  but  it  is  not  equally  excellent  as  a 
creed.  A  certain  class  of  Liberal  divines  have  endeav- 
ored to  petrify  into  a  theory  a  pure  and  placid  disposi- 
tion. In  some  respects  Sydney  Smith  is  one  of  these  : 
his  sermons  are  the  least  excellent  of  his  writings ; 
of  course  they  are  sensible  and  well-intentioned,  but 
they  have  the  defect  of  his  school.  With  misdirected 
energy,  these  divines  have  labored  after  a  plain  reli- 
gion :  they  have  forgotten  that  a  quiet  and  definite 
mind  is  confined  to  a  placid  and  definite  word  ;  that 
religion  has  its  essence  in  awe,  its  charm  in  infinity, 
its  sanction  in  dread  ;  that  its  dominion  is  an  inex- 
plicable dominion,  that  mystery  is  its  power.  There 
is  a  reluctance  in  all  such  writers  :  they  creep  away 
from  the  unintelligible  parts  of  the  subject ;  they 


*  An  evident  misprint  for  "present."  —  En. 

t  Probably  an  allusion  to   Horace's  "impious  vessels"  oil  the  "sunder- 
ing ocean,"  Ode  iii.,  lines  21-24. — ED. 


44  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

always  seem  to  have  something  behind, — not  to  like 
to  bring  out  what  they  know  to  be  at  hand.  They 
are  in  their  nature  apologists ;  and  as  George  III. 
said,  "I  did  not  know  the  Bible  needed  an  apology."* 
As  well  might  the  thunder  be  ashamed  to  roll  as 
religion  hesitate  to  be  too  awful  for  mankind ;  the 
invective  of  Lucretius  is  truer  than  the  placid  patron- 
age of  the  divine.  Let  us  admire  Liberals  in  life,  but 
let  us  keep  no  terms  with  Paleyans  in  speculation. 

And  so  we  must  draw  to  a  conclusion.  We  have 
in  some  sort  given  a  description  of  —  with  one  great 
exception  —  the  most  remarkable  men  connected  at  its 
origin  with  the  Edinburgh  Review;  and  that  excep- 
tion is  a  man  of  too  fitful,  defective,  and  strange 
greatness  to  be  spoken  of  now.  Henry  Brougham 
must  be  left  to  after  times,  f  Indeed,  he  would  have 
marred  the  unity  of  our  article,  —  he  was  connected 
with  the  Whigs,  but  he  never  was  one :  his  impul- 
sive ardor  is  the  opposite  of  their  coolness ;  his  irreg- 
ular, discursive  intellect  contrasts  with  their  quiet 
and  perfecting  mind.  Of  those  of  whom  we  have 
spoken,  let  us  say  that  if  none  of  them  attained  to 
the  highest  rank  of  abstract  intellect,  if  the  dispo- 
sition of  none  of  them  was  ardent  or  glowing  enough 
to  hurry  them  forward  to  the  extreme  point  of  daring 
greatness,  if  only  one  can  be  said  to  have  a  lasting 
place  in  real  literature,  —  it  is  clear  that  they  van- 
quished a  slavish  cohort ;  that  they  upheld  the  name 
of  freemen  in  a  time  of  bondmen ;  that  they  applied 
themselves  to  that  which  was  real,  and  accomplished 
much  which  was  very  difficult ;  that  the  very  critics 
who  question  their  inimitable  excellence  will  yet  ad- 
mire their  just  and  scarcely  imitable  example. 


*  Referring  to  Watson's  "Apology  for  the  Bible,"  in  reply  to  Paine.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  Bishop  was  a  better  scholar  than  the 
King,  and  used  the  word  in  its  original  sense  of  "vindication."  —  ED. 

t  See  Vol.  iii.  of  this  series. 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE* 

(1852.) 

[All  the  biographical  details  and  quotations  in  this  essay  not  otherwise 
credited  are  from  Rev.  Derwent  Coleridge's  Memoir  of  his  brother,  prefixed 
to  his  edition  of  the  latter's  poems.  —  ED.] 

HARTLEY  COLERIDGE  was  not  like  the  Duke  of  Well- 
ington. Children  are  urged  by  the  example  of  the 
great  statesman  and  warrior  just  departed  —  not 
indeed  to  neglect  "their  book"  as  he  did,  but  —  to 
be  industrious  and  thrifty;  to  "always  perform  busi- 
ness," to  "beware  of  procrastination,"  to  "NEVER  fail 
to  do  their  best : "  good  ideas,  as  may  be  ascertained 
by  referring  to  the  masterly  dispatches  on  the  IVfah- 
ratta  transactions,  —  "great  events,"  as  the  preacher 
,  continues,  "  which  exemplify  the  efficacy  of  diligence 
even  in  regions  where  the  very  advent  of  our  religion 
is  as  yet  but  partially  made  known."  But 

"What  a  wilderness  were  this  sad  world, 
If  man  were  always  man  and  never  child ! "  t 

And  it  were  almost  a  worse  wilderness  if  there  were 
not  some,  to  relieve  the  dull  monotony  of  activity, 
who  are  children  through  life ;  who  act  on  wayward 
impulse,  and  whose  will  has  never  come ;  who  toil  not 
and  who  spin  not;  who  always  have  "fair  Eden's 
simpleness "  J :  and  of  such  was  Hartley  Coleridge. 
"Don't  you  remember,"  writes  Gray  to  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  "when  Lord  B  and  Sir  H.  C  and  Viscount  D, 
who  are  now  great  statesmen,  were  little  dirty  boys 
playing  at  cricket  ?  For  my  part,  I  do  not  feel  one 

*  Hartley  Coleridge's  Lives  of  the  Northern  Worthies.  A  New  Edition. 
8  vols.  Moxon. 

t  Hartley  Coleridge,  "Sonnet  to  Childhood." 
t  Ibid. 

(45) 


46  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

bit  older  or  wiser  now  than  I  did  then."*  For  as 
some  apply  their  minds  to  what  is  next  them,  and 
labor  ever,  and  attain  to  governing  the  Tower  and 
entering  the  Trinity  House,  to  commanding  armies 
and  applauding  pilots,  —  so  there  are  also  some  who 
are  ever  anxious  to-day  about  what  ought  only  to  be 
considered  to-morrow ;  who  never  get  on ;  whom  the 
earth  neglects,  and  whom  tradesmen  little  esteem ; 
who  are  where  they  were ;  who  cause  grief,  and  are 
loved;  that  are  at  once  a  by- word  and  a  blessing; 
who  do  not  live  in  life,  and  it  seems  will  not  die  in 
death  :  and  of  such  was  Hartley  Coleridge. 

A  curious  instance  of  poetic  anticipation  was  in 
this  instance  vouchsafed  to  Wordsworth.  When 
Hartley  was  six  years  old,  he  addressed  to  him 
these  verses,  f  perhaps  the  best  ever  written  on  a 
real  and  visible  child :  — 

"O  thou  !   whose  fancies  from  afar  are  brought; 

Who  of  thy  words  dost,  make  a  mock  apparel, 
And  fittest  to  unutterable  thought 

The  breeze-like  motion  and  the  self -born  carol; 
Thou  faery  voyager  !  that  dost  float 
In  such  clear  water  that  thy  boat 
May  rather  seem 
To  brood  on  air  than  on  an  earthly  stream ; 

0  blessed  vision  !  happy  child  ! 
Thou  art  so  exquisitely  wild, 

1  think  of  thee  with  many  fears 

For  what  may  be  thy  lot  in  future  years. 

Oh,  too  industrious  folly! 

Oh,  vain  and  causeless  melancholy ! 

Nature  will  either  end  thee  quite, 

Or,  lengthening  out  thy  season  of  delight, 

Preserve  for  thee,  by  individual  right, 

A  young  lamb's  heart  among  the  full-grown  flocks." 


*  From  a  letter  to  West  (May  27,  1742),  not  to  Walpole ;  and  the  correct 

reading  is  this:  —  "There  is  my.  lords and ,  they  are  statesmen:  do 

not  you  remember  them  dirty  boys  playing  at  cricket?  As  for  me,  I  am 
never  a  bit  the  older  nor  the  bigger  nor  the  wiser  than  I  was  then."  —  ED. 

t"To  H.  C." 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  47 

And  so  it  was :  as  often  happens,  being  very 
little  of  a  boy  in  actual  childhood,  Hartley  preserved 
into  manhood  and  age  all  of  boyhood  which  he 
had  ever  possessed,  —  its  beaming  imagination  and  its 
wayward  will.  He  had  none  of  the  natural  rough- 
ness of  that  age :  he  never  played,  partly  from 
weakness  (for  he  was  very  small)  but  more  from 
awkwardness,  —  his  uncle  Southey  used  to  say  he  had 
two  left  hands,  and  might  have  added  that  they  were 
both  useless  ;  he  could  no  more  have  achieved  foot- 
ball or  mastered  cricket,  or  kept  in  with  the  hounds, 
than  he  could  have  followed  Charles's  Wain  or  played 
pitch  and  toss  with  Jupiter's  satellites.  Nor  was  he 
very  excellent  at  school  work.  He  showed  indeed  no 
deficiency  :  the  Coleridge  family  have  inherited  from 
the  old  scholar  of  Ottery  St.  Mary  a  certain  classi- 
cal facility  which  could  not  desert  the  son  of  Samuel 
Taylor ;  but  his  real  strength  was  in  his  own  mind. 
All  children  have  a  world  of  their  own,  as  distinct 
from  that  of  the  grown  people  who  gravitate  around 
them  as  the  dreams  of  girlhood  from  our  prosaic  life, 
as  the  ideas  of  the  kitten  that  plays  with  the  falling 
leaves  from  those  of  her  carnivorous  mother  that 
catches  mice  and  is  sedulous  in  her  domestic  duties. 
But  generally,  about  this  interior  existence,  children 
are  dumb.  You  have  warlike  ideas  ;  but  you  cannot 
say  to  a  sinewy  relative,  "  My  dear  aunt,  I  wonder 
when  the  big  bush  in  the  garden  will  begin  to  walk 
about :  I'm  sure  it's  a  crusader,  and  I  was  cutting  it 
all  the  day  with  my  steel  sword.  But  what  do  you 
think,  aunt  ?  for  I'm  puzzled  about  its  legs,  because 
you  see,  aunt,  it  has  only  one  stalk ;  and  besides, 
aunt,  the  leaves."  You  cannot  remark  this  in  sec- 
ular life ;  but  you  hack  at  the  infelicitous  bush  till 
you  do  not  altogether  reject  the  idea  that  your  small 
garden  is  Palestine,  and  yourself  the  most  adventur- 
ous of  knights.  Hartley  had  this,  of  course,  like  any 
other  dreamy  child  ;  but  in  his  case  it  was  accompa- 
nied with  the  faculty  of  speech  and  an  extraordinary 


48  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

facility  in  continuous  story -telling.  In  the  very  earli- 
est childhood  he  had  conceived  a  complete  outline  of 
a  country  like  England,  whereof  he  was  king  himself, 
and  in  which  there  were  many  wars  and  rumors  of 
wars,  and  foreign  relations,  and  statesmen,  and  reb- 
els, and  soldiers.  "My  people,  Derwent,"  he  used 
to  begin,  "are  giving  me  much  pain:  they  want  to 
go  to  war."*  This  faculty,  as  was  natural,  showed 
itself  before  he  went  to  school ;  but  he  carried  on 
the  habit  of  fanciful  narration  even  into  that  bleak 
and  ungenial  region.  "  It  was  not,"  says  his  brother, 
"by  a  series  of  tales,  but  by  one  continuous  tale, 
regularly  evolved  and  possessing  a  real  unity,  that  he 
enchained  the  attention  of  his  auditors  night  after 
night,  as  we  lay  in  bed,  .  .  .  for  a  space  of  years, 
and  not  unfrequently  for  hours  together.  .  .  .  There 
was  certainly,"  he  adds,  "a  great  variety  of  persons 
sharply  characterized,  who  appeared  on  the  stage  in 
combination  and  not  merely  in  succession."  Con- 
nected, in  Hartley,  with  this  premature  development 
of  the  imagination,  there  was  a  singular  deficiency 
in  what  may  be  called  the  sense  of  reality :  it  is  al- 
leged that  he  hardly  knew  that  Ejuxria,  which  is  the 
name  of  his  kingdom,  was  not  as  solid  a  terra  finna 
as  Keswick  or  Ambleside.  The  deficiency  showed 
itself  on  other  topics.  His  father  used  to  tell  a  story 
of  his  metaphysical  questioning.  When  he  was 
about  five  years  old  he  was  asked,  doubtless  by  the 
paternal  metaphysician,  some  question  as  to  why  he 
was  called  Hartley.  "'Which  Hartley?'  asked  the 
boy.  — '  Why  !  is  there  more  than  one  Hartley  ? '  — 
'Yes/  he  replied,  there's  a  deal  of  Hartleys:  .  .  . 
there's  Picture  Hartley'  (Hazlitt  had  painted  a  por- 
trait of  him),  'and  Shadow  Hartley,  and  there's  Echo 
Hartley,  and  there's  Catch -me-fast-Hartley,'"  seizing 
his  own  arm  very  eagerly,  and  as  if  reflecting  on  the 


*  Incorrectly  given.  From  letter  of  Mrs.  Basil  Montagu  in  Memoir :  — 
"He  said,  'My  people  are  too  fond  of  war,  .  .  .  and  to  war  they  will 
go.'"  — ED. 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  49 

"summject  and  ommject,"*  —  which  is  to  say,  being 
in  hopeless  confusion.  We  do  not  hear  whether  he 
was  puzzled  and  perplexed  by  such  difficulties  in 
later  life :  and  the  essays  which  we  are  reviewing, 
though  they  contain  much  keen  remark  on  the  detail 
of  human  character,  are  destitute  of  the  Germanic 
profundities ;  they  do  not  discuss  how  existence  is 
possible,  nor  enumerate  the  pure  particulars  of  the 
soul  itself.  But  considering  the  idle  dreaminess  of 
his  youth  and  manhood,  we  doubt  if  Hartley  ever  got 
over  his  preliminary  doubts, — ever  properly  grasped 
the  idea  of  fact  and  reality.  This  is  not  nonsense : 
if  you  attend  acutely,  you  may  observe  that  in  few 
things  do  people  differ  more  than  in  their  perfect 
and  imperfect  realization  of  this  earth.  To  the  Duke 
of  Wellington  a  coat  was  a  coat,  —  "there  was  no 
mistake,"  no  reason  to  disbelieve  it ;  and  he  carried 
to  his  grave  a  perfect  and  indubitable  persuasion 
that  he  really  did  (what  was  his  best  exploit),  with- 
out fluctuation,  shave  on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo,  —  you  could  not  have  made  him  doubt  it. 
But  to  many  people  who  will  never  be  field  mar- 
shals, there  is  on  such  points,  not  rational  doubt 
but  instinctive  questioning.  "Who  the  devil,"  said 
Lord  Byron,  "could  make  such  a  world?  No  one, 
I  believe. "  f 

''Cast  your  thoughts,"  says  a  very  different  writer, J  "back  on 
the  time  when  our  ancient  buildings  were  first  reared.  Consider 
the  churches  all  around  us :  how  many  generations  have  past  since 
stone  was  put  upon  stone  till  the  whole  edifice  was  finished  !  The 
first  movers  and  instruments  of  its  erection,  the  minds  that  planned 
it  and  the  limbs  that  wrought  at  it,  the  pious  hands  that  con- 
tributed to  it  and  the  holy  lips  that  consecrated  it,  have  long, 
long  ago  been  taken  away ;  yet  we  benefit  by  their  good  deed.  .  .  . 
Does  it  not  seem. strange  that  men  should  be  able,  not  merely  by 


*Carlyle,  "Life  of  Sterling,"  Chap.  viii.  (on  Coleridge). 

t  Irrelevant  to  Bagehot's  idea.  Byron's  words  are,  "I  wonder  how  the 
deuse  anybody  could  make  such  a  world"  (Journal,  Feb.  18,  1814);  meaning 
merely  (as  the  context  shows)  of  what  use  most  of  its  inhabitants  are. — ED. 

tJohn   Henry  Newman,  "Plain  and   Parochial   Sermons,"    Vol.  vi.,  Ser- 
mon xix.,  "The  Gospel  Palaces." 
VOL.  I.— 4 


50  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

acting  on  others,  not  by  a  continued  influence  carried  on  through 
many  minds  in  a  long  succession,  but  by  one  simple  and  direct  act, 
to  come  into  contact  with  us,  and  as  if  with  their  own  hand  to 
benefit  us,  who  live  centuries  later?" 

Or  again,  speaking  of  the  lower  animals :  — 

"Can  anything  be  more  marvelous  or  startling,  unless  we  were 
used  to  it,  than  that  we  should  have  a  race  of  beings  about  us 
whom  we  do  but  see,  and  as  little  know  their  state,  or  can  describe 
their  interests  or  their  destiny,  as  we  can  tell  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  sun  and  moon  ?  It  is  indeed  a  very  overpowering  thought, 
when  we  get  to  fix  our  minds  on  it,  that  we  familiarly  use  —  I  may 
say  hold  intercourse  with  —  creatures  who  are  as  much  strangers 
to  us,  as  mysterious,  as  if  they  were  the  fabulous  unearthly  beings, 
more  powerful  than  man  and  yet  his  slaves,  which  Eastern  super- 
stitions have  invented.  .  .  .  Cast  your  thoughts  abroad  on  the 
whole  number  of  them,  large  and  small,  in  vast  forests  or  in  the 
water  or  in  the  air;  and  then  say  whether  the  presence  of  such 
countless  multitudes,  so  various  in  their  natures,  so  strange  and 
wild  in  their  shapes,  ...  is  not"* 

as  incredible  as  anything  can  be.  We  go  into  a 
street  and  see  it  thronged  with  men,  and  we  say,  Is 
it  true,  —  are  there  these  men  ?  We  look  on  a  creep- 
ing river  till  we  say,  Is  there  this  river  ?  We  enter 
the  law  courts ;  we  watch  the  patient  Chancellor ; 
we  hear  the  droning  wigs ;  —  surely  this  is  not  real ; 
this  is  a  dream;  nobody  would  do  that,  —  it  is  a  de- 
lusion. We  are  really,  as  the  skeptics  insinuate,  but 
"  sensations  and  impressions,"  in  groups  or  alone,  that 
float  up  and  down;  or  as  the  poet  teaches,  phantoms 
and  images,  whose  idle  stir  but  mocks  the  calm  real- 
ity of  the  "pictures  on  the  wall."  All  this  will  be 
called  "dreamy";  but  it  is  exactly  because  it  is 
dreamy  that  we  notice  it.  Hartley  Coleridge  was  a 
dreamer  :  he  began  with  Ejuxria,  and  throughout  his 
years  he  but  slumbered  and  slept.  Life  was  to  him 
a  floating  haze,  a  disputable  mirage :  you  must  not 
treat  him  like  a  believer  in  stocks  and  stones,  —  you 
might  as  well  say  he  was  a  man  of  business. 

*Same  series,  Vol.  iv.,  Sermon  xiii.,  "The  Invisible  World." 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  51 

Hartley's  school  education  is  not  worth  recount- 
ing ;  but  beside  and  along  with  it  there  was  another 
education,  on  every  side  of  him,  singularly  calculated 
to  bring  out  the  peculiar  aptitudes  of  an  imaginative 
mind,  yet  exactly  on  that  very  account  very  little 
likely  to  bring  it  down  to  fact  and  reality,  to  mix 
it  with  miry  clay,  or  define  its  dreams  by  a  daily 
reference  to  the  common  and  necessary  earth.  He 
was  bred  up  in  the  house  of  Mr.  Southey,  where, 
more  than  anywhere  else  in  all  England,  it  was  held 
that  literature  and  poetry  are  the  aim  and  object  of 
every  true  man,  and  that  grocery  and  other  affairs 
lie  beneath  at  a  wholly  immeasurable  distance,  to 
be  attended  to  by  the  inferior  animals.  In  Hartley's 
case  the  seed  fell  on  fitting  soil :  in  youth,  and  even 
in  childhood,  he  was  a  not  unintelligent  listener  to 
the  unspeakable  talk  of  the  Lake  poets. 

"It  was  so,"  writes  his  brother,  "rather  than  by 
a  regular  course  of  study,  that  he  was  educated : 
by  desultory  reading,  by  the  living  voice  of  Cole- 
ridge, Southey,  and  Wordsworth,  Lloyd,  Wilson,  and 
De  Quincey  ;  and  again,  by  homely  familiarity  with 
towns-folk  and  country-folk  of  every  degree ;  lastly, 
by  daily  recurring  hours  of  solitude,  —  by  lonely  wan- 
derings with  the  murmur  of  the  Brathay  in  his  ear." 

Thus  he  lived  till  the  time  came  that  he  should 
go  to  Oxford,  and  naturally  enough,  it  seems  he  went 
up  with  much  hope  and  strong  excitement;  for,  quiet 
and  calm  as  seem  those  ancient  dormitories,  to  him 
as  to  many  the  going  among  them  seemed  the  first 
entrance  into  the  real  world,  —  the  end  of  torpidity, 
the  beginning  of  life.  He  had  often  stood  by  the 
white  Rydal  Water  and  thought  it  was  coming,  and 
now  it  was  come  in  fact.  At  first  his  Oxford  life 
was  prosperous  enough.  An  old  gentleman,*  who 
believes  that  he  too  was  once  an  undergraduate,  well 
remembers  how  Hartley's  eloquence  was  admired  at 
wine  parties  and  breakfast  parties  :  — 

•Rev.  Alexander  Dyce. 


52  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"Leaning  his  head  on  one  shoulder,  turning  up  his  dark  bright 
eyes,  and  swinging  backwards  and  forwards  in  his  chair,  he  would 
hold  forth  by  the  hour  (for  no  one  wished  to  interrupt  him)  on 
whatever  subject  might  have  been  started,  —  either  of  literature, 
politics,  or  religion, — with  an  originality  of  thought,  a  force  of 
illustration,  and  a  facility  and  beauty  of  expression,  which"  the 
narrator  doubts  "if  any  man  then  living,  except  his  father,  could 
have  surpassed." 

The  singular  gift  of  continuous  conversation  —  for 
singular  it  is,  if  in  any  degree  agreeable  —  seems  to 
have  come  to  him  by  nature ;  and  it  was  through 
life  the  one  quality  which  he  relied  on  for  attraction 
in  society.  Its  being  agreeable  is  to  be  accounted 
for  mainly  by  its  singularity  :  if  one  knew  any  re- 
spectable number  of  declaimers,  —  if  any  proportion 
of  one's  acquaintance  should  receive  the  gift  of  the 
English  language,  and  "improve  each  shining  hour" 
with  liquid  eloquence,  how  we  should  regret  their 
present  dumb  and  torpid  condition !  If  we  are  to 
be  dull,  —  which  our  readers  will  admit  to  be  an 
appointment  of  Providence,  —  surely  we  will  be  dull 
in  silence.  Do  not  sermons  exist,  and  are  they  not 
a  warning  to  mankind  ? 

In  fact,  the  habit  of  common  and  continuous 
speech  is  a  symptom  of  mental  deficiency :  it  pro- 
ceeds from  not  knowing  what  is  going  on  in  other 
people's  minds.  S.  T.  Coleridge,  it  is  well  known, 
talked  to  everybody,  and  to  everybody  alike  :  like  a 
Christian  divine,  he  did  not  regard  persons.  "That 
is  a  fine  opera,  Mr.  Coleridge,"  said  a  young  lady, 
some  fifty  years  back. — "Yes,  ma'am;  and  I  remem- 
ber Kant  somewhere  makes  a  very  similar  remark  : 
for  as  we  know,  the  idea  of  philosophical  infinity  — 
Now,  this  sort  of  talk  will  answer  with  two  sorts  of 
people:  — With  comfortable,  stolid,  solid  people,  who 
don't  understand  it  at  all,  who  don't  feel  that  they 
ought  to  understand  it.  —  who  feel  that  they  ought 
not,  that  they  are  to  sell  treacle  and  appreciate  figs, 
but  that  there  is  this  transcendental  superlunary 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  53 

sphere,  which  is  known  to  others,  which  is  now 
revealed  in  the  spiritual  speaker,  the  unmitigated  ora- 
cle, the  evidently  celestial  sound.  That  the  dreamy 
orator  himself  has  no  more  notion  what  is  passing  in 
their  minds  than  they  have  what  is  running  through 
his,  is  of  no  consequence  at  all.  If  he  did  know  it, 
he  would  be  silent :  he  would  be  jarred  to  feel  how 
utterly  he  was  misunderstood ;  it  would  break  the 
flow  of  his  everlasting  words.  Much  better  that  he 
should  run  on  in  a  never-pausing  stream,  and  that 
the  wondering  rustics  should  admire  forever ;  the 
basis  of  the  entertainment  is,  that  neither  should 
comprehend  the  other.  But  in  a  degree  yet  higher 
is  the  society  of  an  omniscient  orator  agreeable  to 
a  second  sort  of  people  :  generally  young  men,  and 
particularly  —  as  in  Hartley's  case  —  clever  unde.r- 
graduates.  All  young  men  like  what  is  theatrical ; 
and  by  a  fine  dispensation,  all  clever  young  men  like 
notions, — they  want  to  hear  about  opinions,  to  know 
about  opinions.  The  ever-flowing  rhetorician  gratifies 
both  propensions  :  he  is  a  notional  spectacle;  like  the 
sophist  of  old,  he  is  something  and  says  something. 
The  vagabond  speculator  in  all  ages  will  take  hold  on 
those  who  wish  to  reason,  and  want  premises ;  who 
wish  to  argue,  and  want  theses ;  who  desire  demon- 
strations, and  have  but  presumptions  :  and  so  it  was 
acceptable  enough  that  Hartley  should  make  the  low 
tones  of  his  musical  voice  glide  sweetly  and  sponta- 
neously through  the  cloisters  of  Merton,  debating  the 
old  questions,  the  "fate,  freewill,  foreknowledge,"*  — 
the  points  that  Ockham  and  Scotus  propounded  in 
these  same  inclosures,  —  the  common  riddles,  the  ever- 
lasting enigmas  of  mankind.  It  attracts  the  scorn  of 
middle-aged  men  (who  depart  npd?  rd  iepa,  \  and  fancy 
they  are  wise)  ;  but  it  is  a  pleasant  thing,  —  that 
impact  of  hot  thought  upon  hot  thought,  of  young 
thought  upon  young  thought,  of  new  thought  upon 

*"  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  il. 

t  "To  the  sacrifices"  (I.  c.,  cliug  to  accepted  creeds). 


54        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

new  thought ;  it  comes  to  the  fortunate  once,  but  to 
no  one  a  second  time  thereafter  forever. 

Nor  was  Hartley  undistinguished  in  the  regular 
studies  of  the  University.  A  regular,  exact,  accu- 
rate scholar  he  never  was;  but  even  in  his  early 
youth,  he  perhaps  knew  much  more  and  understood 
much  more  of  ancient  literature  than  sevenscore  of 
schoolmasters  and  classmen.  He  had  probably  in  his 
mind  a  picture  of  the  ancient  world,  or  of  some  of 
it ;  while  the  dry  literati  only  know  the  combina- 
tions and  permutations  of  the  Greek  alphabet.  There 
is  a  pleasant  picture  of  him  at  this  epoch,  recorded 
by  an  eye-witness :  — 

"My  attention,"  he  narrates,  "was  at  first  aroused  by  seeing 
from  rny  window  a  figure  flitting  about  amongst  the  trees  and 
shrubs  of  the  garden  with  quick  and  agitated  motion.  This  was 
Hartley,  who,  in  the  ardor  of  preparing  for  his  college  examina- 
tion, did  not  even  take  his  meals  with  the  family ;  but  snatched  a 
hasty  morsel  in  his  own  apartment,  and  only  .  .  .  sought  the  free 
air  when  the  fading  daylight  no  longer  permitted  him  to  see  his 
books.  Having  found  out  who  he  was  that  so  mysteriously  flitted 
about  the  garden,  I  was  determined  to  lose  no  time  in  making  his 
acquaintance  ;  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  Mrs.  Coleridge  I 
paid  Hartley  a  visit  to  what  he  called  his  '  den. '  This  was  a  room 
afterwards  converted  by  Mr.  Southey  "  —  as  what  chink  was  not  ?  — 
"into  a  supplementary  library,  but  then  appropriated  as  a  study 
to  Hartley,  and  presenting  a  most  picturesque  and  student-like 
disorder  of  scattered  pamphlets  and  open  folios." 

This  is  not  a  picture  of  the  business-like  reading 
man,  —  one  wonders  what  fraction  of  his  time  he  did 
read, — but  it  was  probably  the  happiest  period  of 
his  life.  .There  was  no  coarse  prosaic  action  there  : 
much  musing,  little  studying ;  fair  scholarship,  an 
atmosphere  of  the  classics,  curious  fancies,  much  pe- 
rusing of  pamphlets,  light  thoughts  on  heavy  folios, — 
these  make  the  meditative  poet,  but  not  the  technical 
and  patient-headed  scholar :  yet  after  all  he  was 
happy,  and  obtained  a  second  class. 

A  more  suitable  exercise,  as  it  would  have  seemed 
at  first  sight,  was  supplied  by  that  curious  portion 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  55 

of  Oxford  routine,  the  Annual  Prize  Poem.  This, 
he  himself  tells  us,  was  in  his  academic  years  the 
real  and  single  object  of  his  ambition.  His  reason 
is,  for  an  autobiographical  reason,  decidedly  simple. 
"A  great  poet,"  he  says,  "I  should  not  have  im- 
agined myself,  for  I  knew  well  enough  that  the 
verses  were  no  great  things : "  but  he  entertained  at 
that  period  of  life  —  he  was  twenty-one  —  a  favorable 
opinion  of  young  ladies;  and  he  seems  to  have  ascer- 
tained, possibly  from  actual  trial,  that  verses  were  not 
in  themselves  a  very  emphatic  attraction.  Singular 
as  it  may  sound,  the  ladies  selected  were  not  only 
insensible  to  what  is  after  all  a  metaphysical  line, 
the  distinction  between  good  poetry  and  bad,  but 
were  almost  indifferent  to  poetry  itself.  Yet  the  ex- 
periment was  not  quite  conclusive :  verses  might  fail 
in  common  life  and  yet  succeed  in  the  Sheldonian 
theater.  It  is  plain  that  they  would  be  read  out: 
it  occurred  to  him,  as  he  naively  relates,  that  if 
he  should  appear  "as  a  prizeman,"  "as  a  reciter  of 
intelligible  poetry,"  he  would  be  an  object  of  "some 
curiosity  to  the  fair  promenaders  in  Christ  Church 
Meadow";  that  the  young  ladies  "with  whom"  he 
"was  on  bowing  and  speaking  terms  might  have  felt 
a  satisfaction  in  being  known  to  know  me  which 
they  had  never  experienced  before."  "I  should,"  he 
adds,  "have  deemed  myself  a  prodigious  lion,  and  it 
was  a  character  I  was  weak  enough  to  covet  more 
than  that  of  poet,  scholar,  or  philosopher." 

In  fact,  he  did  not  get  the  prize.  The  worthy 
East-Indian*  who  imagined  that  in  leaving  a  bequest 
for  a  prize  to  poetry,  he  should  be  as  sure  of  possess- 
ing poetry  for  his  money  as  of  eggs  if  he  had  chosen 
eggs,  or  of  butter  if  he  had  chosen  butter,  did  not 
estimate  rightly  the  nature  of  poetry  or  the  nature 
of  the  human  mind.  The  mechanical  parts  of  rhythm 

*  A  curious  error :  Sir  Roger  Newdigate  (1719-1806)  was  a  Warwickshire 
country  gentleman,  long  M.  P.  for  Oxford,  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  India. 
See  Burke's  "  Landed  Gentry,"  a  blundering  note  in  "  Beauties  of  England 
and  Wales,"  under  Arbury  in  Warwickshire,  and  a  correct  one  in  Wright's 
edition  of  Horace  Walpole's  Letters,  repeated  in  Cunningham's,  i.  194-5.  —  ED. 


56         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  metre  are  all  that  a  writer  can  be  certain  of  pro- 
ducing, or  that  a  purchaser  can  be  sure  of  obtaining; 
and  these  an  industrious  person  will  find  in  any 
collection  of  the  Newdigate  poems,  together  with  a 
fine  assortment  of  similes  and  sentiments  respectively 
invented  and  enjoined  by  Shem  and  Japhet  for  and 
to  the  use  of  after  generations.  And  there  is  a 
peculiar  reason  why  a  great  poet  (besides  his  being, 
as  a  man  of  genius,  rather  more  likely  than  another 
to  find  a  difficulty  in  the  preliminary  technicalities 
of  art)  should  not  obtain  an  academical  prize,  to  be 
given  for  excellent  verses  to  people  of  about  twenty- 
one  :  it  is  a  bad  season.  "The  imagination"  (said  a 
great  poet  of  the  very  age)  "of  a  boy  is  healthy,  and 
the  mature  imagination  of  a  man  is  healthy ;  but 
there  is  a  space  of  life  between,  in  which  the  soul 
is  in  a  ferment,  the  character  undecided,  the  way 
of  life  uncertain,  the  ambition  thick-sighted."  *  And 
particularly  in  a  real  poet,  where  the  disturbing 
influences  of  passion  and  fancy  are  most  likely  to  be 
in  excess,  will  this  unhealthy  tinge  be  most  likely  to 
be  excessive  and  conspicuous.  Nothing  in  the  style 
of  "Endymion"  would  have  a  chance  of  a  prize: 
there  are  no  complete  conceptions,  no  continuance  of 
adequate  words;  what  is  worse,  there  are  no  defined 
thoughts  or  aged  illustrations.  The  characteristic  of 
the  whole  is  beauty  and  novelty;  but  it  is  beauty 
which  is  not  formed,  and  novelty  which  is  strange 
and  wavering.  Some  of  these  defects  are  observable 
in  the  copy  of  verses  on  the  "  Horses  of  Lysippus," 
which  Hartley  Coleridge  contributed  to  the  list  of 
unsuccessful  attempts.  It  does  not  contain  so  much 
originality  as  we  might  have  expected,  —  on  such  a 
topic  we  anticipated  more  nonsense ;  a  little  we  are 
glad  to  say  there  is,  and  also  that  there  is  an  utter 
want  of  those  even  raps  which  are  the  music  of  prize 
poems,  —  which  were  the  right  rhythm  for  Pope's  elab- 
orate sense,  but  are  quite  unfit  for  dreamy  classics 
or  contemplative  enthusiasm.  If  Hartley,  like  Pope, 

*  Keats  in  the  preface  to  "Endyrnion." 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  57 

had  been  the  son  of  a  shopkeeper,  he  would  not 
have  received  the  paternal  encouragement,  but  rather 
a  reprimand,  —  "Boy,  boy,  these  be  bad  rhymes;" 
and  so  too  believed  a  grizzled  and  cold  examiner. 

A  much  worse  failure  was  at  hand.  He  had  been 
elected  to  a  fellowship  in  what  was  at  that  time  the 
only  open  foundation  in  Oxford,  —  Oriel  College :  an 
event  which  shows  more  exact  scholarship  in  Hart- 
ley, or  more  toleration  in  the  academical  authorities 
for  the  grammatical  delinquencies  of  a  superior  man, 
than  we  should  have  been  inclined,  a  priori,  to  at- 
tribute to  either  of  them.  But  it  soon  became  clear 
that  Hartley  was  not  exactly  suited  to  that  place. 
Decorum  is  the  essence,  pomposity  the  advantage, 
of  tutors  :  these  Hartley  had  not.  Beside  the  seri- 
ous defects  which  we  shall  mention  immediately,  he 
was  essentially  an  absent  and  musing,  and  there- 
fore at  times  a  highly  indecorous  man  ;  and  though 
not  defective  in  certain  kinds  of  vanity,  there  was 
no  tinge  in  his  manner  of  scholastic  dignity.  A 
schoolmaster  should  have  an  atmosphere  of  awe,  and 
walk  wonderingly,  as  if  he  was  amazed  at  being 
himself  ;  but  an  excessive  sense  of  the  ludicrous  dis- 
abled Hartley  altogether  from  the  acquisition  of  this 
valuable  habit,  —  perhaps  he  never  really  attempted 
to  obtain  it.  He  accordingly  never  became  popular 
as  a  tutor,  nor  was  he  ever  described  as  "exercising 
an  influence  over  young  persons."  Moreover,  how- 
ever excellently  suited  Hartley's  eloquence  might  be 
to  the  society  of  undergraduates,  it  was  out  of  place 
at  the  fellows'  table  :  this  is  said  to  be  a  dull  place. 
The  excitement  of  early  thought  has  passed  away, 
the  excitements  of  active  manhood  are  unknown  ;  a 
certain  torpidity  seems  natural  there.  We  find  too 
that  —  probably  for  something  to  say  —  he  was  in 
those  years  rather  fond  of  exaggerated  denunciation 
of  the  powers  that  be :  this  is  not  the  habit  most 
grateful  to  the  heads  of  houses.  "  Sir,"  said  a  great 
authority,  "do  you  deny  that  Lord  Derby  ought  to 


58  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

be  Prime  Minister  ?  you  might  as  well  say  that  I 
ought  not  to  be  Warden  of  So-and-So. "  *  These  habits 
rendered  poor  Hartley  no  favorite  with  the  leading 
people  of  his  college ;  and  no  great  prospective  shrewd- 
ness was  required  to  predict  that  he  would  fare 
but  ill,  if  any  sufficient  occasion  should  be  found  for 
removing  from  the  place  a  person  so  excitable  and 
so  little  likely  to  be  of  use  in  inculcating  "safe" 
opinions  among  the  surrounding  youth. 

Unhappily,  the  visible  morals  of  Hartley  offered 
an  easy  occasion.  It  is  not  quite  easy  to  gather 
from  the  narrative  of  his  brother  the  exact  nature 
or  full  extent  of  his  moral  delinquencies  ;  but  enough 
is  shown  to  warrant,  according  to  the  rules,  the  un- 
favorable judgment  of  the  collegiate  authorities.  He 
describes,  probably  truly,  the  commencement  of  his 
errors  :  — 

"I  verily  believe  that  I  should  have  gone  crazy,  silly -mad,  with 
vanity,  had  I  obtained  the  prize  for  my  'Horses  of  Lysippus.'  It 
was  almost  the  only  occasion  in  my  life  wherein  I  was  keenly  dis- 
appointed ;  for  it  was  the  only  one  upon  which  I  felt  any  confi- 
dent hope.  I  had  made  myself  very  sure  of  it,  and  the  intelligence 
that  not  I  but  Macdonald  was  the  lucky  man  absolutely  stupefied 
me ;  yet  1  contrived  for  a  time  to  lose  all  sense  of  my  own  mis- 
fortune, in  exultation  for  Burton's  success.  ...  I  sang,  I  danced, 
I  whistled,  I  leapt,  I  ran  from  room  to  room,  announcing  the  great 
tidings,  and  tried  to  persuade  even  myself  that  I  cared  nothing  at 
all  for  my  own  case.  But  it  would  not  do :  it  was  bare  sands 
with  me  the  next  day.  It  was  not  the  mere  loss  of  the  prize,  but 
the  feeling  or  phantasy  of  an  adverse  destiny.  ...  I  foresaw  that 
all  my  aims  and  hopes  would  prove  frustrate  and  abortive ;  and 
from  that  time  I  date  my  downward  declension,  my  impotence  of 
will  and  melancholy  recklessness.  It  was  the  first  time  I  sought 
relief  from  wine,  which,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  produced  not  so 
much  intoxication  as  downright  madness." 

Cast  in  an  uncongenial  society,  requiring  to  live 
in  an  atmosphere  of  respect  and  affection  and  sur- 
rounded by  gravity  and  distrust,  misconstrued  and 


*The    original    Review    article    has    "Dr.    Marsham"    and    "Warden    of 
Merton  "  for  the  generalities  in  the  repriut. —  ED. 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  59 

half  tempted  to  maintain  the  misconstruction  ;  with 
the  waywardness  of  childhood  without  the  innocency 
of  its  impulses,  with  the  passions  of  manhood  with- 
out the  repressive  vigor  of  a  man's  will, — he  lived 
as  a  woman  lives  that  is  lost  and  forsaken,  who  sins 
ever  and  hates  herself  for  sinning,  but  who  sins  per- 
haps more  on  that  very  account :  because  she  requires 
some  relief  from  the  keenness  of  her  own  reproach  ; 
because  in  her  morbid  fancy  the  idea  is  ever  before 
her ;  because  her  petty  will  is  unable  to  cope  with 
the  daily  craving  and  the  horrid  thought, — that  she 
may  not  lose  her  own  identity,  that  she  may  not 
give  in  to  the  rigid,  the  distrustful,  and  the  calm. 

There  is  just  this  excuse  for  Hartley,  whatever  it 
may  be  worth,  that  the  weakness  was  hereditary. 
We  do  not  as  yet  know  —  it  seems  most  likely  that 
we  shall  never  know  —  the  precise  character  of  his 
father;  but  with  all  the  discrepancy  concerning  the 
details,  enough  for  our  purpose  is  certain  of  the  out- 
line. We  know  that  he  lived  many  and  long  years 
a  prey  to  weaknesses  and  vice  of  this  very  descrip- 
tion ;  and  though  it  be  false  and  mischievous  to 
speak  of  hereditary  vice,  it  is  most  true  and  wise  to 
observe  the  mysterious  fact  of  hereditary  temptation. 
Doubtless  it  is  strange  that  the  nobler  emotions  and 
the  inferior  impulses,  their  peculiar  direction  or  their 
proportionate  strength,  the  power  of  a  fixed  idea,  — 
that  the  inner  energy  of  the  very  will,  which  seems 
to  issue  from  the  inmost  core  of  our  complex  nature, 
and  to  typify,  if  anything  does,  the  pure  essence  of 
the  immortal  soul,  —  that  these  and  such  as  these 
should  be  transmitted  by  material  descent,  as  though 
they  were  an  accident  of  the  body,  the  turn  of  an 
eyebrow  or  the  feebleness  of  a  joint.  If  this  were 
not  obvious,  it  would  be  as  amazing  [as] — perhaps 
more  amazing  than  —  any  fact  which  we  know;  it 
looks  not  only  like  predestinated,  but  even  herita- 
ble election.  But,  explicable  or  inexplicable,  to  be 
wondered  at  or  not  wondered  at,  the  fact  is  clear  • 


60  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

tendencies  and  temptations  are  transmitted  even  to 
the  fourth  generation,  both  for  good  and  for  evil,  both 
in  those  who  serve  God  and  in  those  who  serve  him 
not.  Indeed,  the  weakness  before  us  seems  essen- 
tially connected  —  perhaps  we  may  say  on  a  final 
examination  essentially  identical  —  with  the  dreami- 
ness of  mind,  the  inapprehensiveness  of  reality,  which 
we  remarked  upon  before.  Wordsworth  used  to  say 
that  at  a  particular  stage  of  his  mental  progress  he 
used  to  be  frequently  so  rapt  into  an  unreal  tran- 
scendental world  of  ideas  that  the  external  world 
seemed  no  longer  to  exist  in  relation  to  him,  and  he 
had  to  convince  himself  of  its  existence  by  clasping 
a  tree  or  something  that  happened  to  be  near  him.  * 
But  suppose  a  mind  which  did  not  feel  acutely  the 
sense  of  reality  which  others  feel,  in  hard  contact 
with  the  tangible  universe  ;  which  was  blind  to  the 
distinction  between  the  palpable  and  the  impalpable, 
or  rather  lived  in  the  latter  in  preference  to,  and 
nearly  to  the  exclusion  of,  the  former.  —  what  is  to 
fix  such  a  mind  ?  what  is  to  strengthen  it,  to  give  it 
a  fulcrum  ?  To  exert  itself,  the  will,  like  the  arm, 
requires  to  have  an  obvious  and  a  definite  resistance ; 
to  know  where  it  is,  why  it  is,  whence  it  comes 
and  whither  it  goes.  "We  are  such  stuff  as  dreams 
are  made  on,"  f  says  Prospero.  So  too  the  difficulty 
of  Shakespeare's  greatest  dreamer,  Hamlet,  is,  that 
he  cannot  quite  believe  that  his  duty  is  to  be  done 
where  it  lies,  and  immediately ;  partly  from  the  nat- 
ural effect  of  a  vision  of  a  spirit  which  is  not,  but 
more  from  native  constitution  and  instinctive  bent, 
he  is  forever  speculating  on  the  reality  of  existence, 
the  truth  of  the  world.  "How,"  discusses  Kant,  "is 


*Note  to  ode  on  the  "Intimations  of  Immortality":  —  "I  was  often 
unable  to  think  of  external  things  as  having  external  existence;  and  I  com- 
muned with  all  that  I  saw  as  something  not  apart  from,  but  inherent  in, 
my  own  immaterial  nature.  Many  times  while  going  to  school  have  I 
grasped  at  a  wall  or  tree  to  recall  myself  from  this  abyss  of  idealism  to  the 
reality." 

t"  The  Tempest,"  iv.  1. 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  61 

nature  in  general  possible?"*  and  so  asked  Hamlet 
too.  With  this  feeling  on  his  mind,  persuasion  is 
useless  and  argument  in  vain.  Examples  gross  as 
earth  exhort  him,  but  they  produce  no  effect ;  but  he 
thinks  and  thinks  the  more. 

"Now,  whether  it  be 
Bestial  oblivion,  or  some  craven  scruple 
Of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event,  — 
A  thought  which,  quartered,   hath  but  one  part  wisdom 
And  ever  three  parts  coward,  —  I  do  not  know 
Why  yet  I  live  to  say,   '  This  thing's  to  do,' 
Sith  I  have  cause  and  will  and  strength  and  means 
To  do't."t 

Hartley  himself  well  observes  that  on  such  a  char- 
acter the  likelihood  of  action  is  inversely  as  the  force 
of  the  motive  and  the  time  for  deliberation.^  The 
stronger  the  reason,  the  more  certain  the  skepticism  : 
can  anything  be  so  certain  ?  does  not  the  excess 
of  the  evidence  alleged  make  it  clear  that  there  is 
something  behind,  something  on  the  other  side  ? 
search  then  diligently  lest  anything  be  overlooked. 
Reflection  "puzzles  the  will,"§  necessity  "benumbs 
like  a  torpedo  ; "  ||  and  so 

"The  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought ; 
And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action. "IT 

Why  should  we  say  any  more  ?  We  do  but 
"chant  snatches  of  old  tunes."**  But  in  estimating 
men  like  the  Coleridges,  —  the  son  even  more  than 
the  father,  —  we  must  take  into  account  this  peculiar 
difficulty,  this  dreamy  unbelief,  this  daily  skepticism, 
this  haunting  unreality,  and  imagine  that  some  may 


*"  Prolegomena  to  Metaphysic,"  37,  38.  t  "  Hamlet,"  ir.  5. 

t  Essay  "On  the  Character  of  Hamlet."  §"To  be  or  not  to  be." 

[  Derwent  Coleridge  on  Hartley.  IF  "Hamlet."  Hi.  1. 

**"Thy  snatches  of  old  lays."  —  "Virginia,"  in   Macaulay's  "Lays  of 
Ancient  Rome." 


62         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

not  be  quite  responsible  either  for  what  they  do  or 
for  what  they  do  not ;  because  they  are  bewildered 
and  deluded  and  perplexed,  and  want  the  faculty  as 
much  to  comprehend  their  difficulty  as  to  subdue  it. 
The  Oxford  life  of  Hartley  is  all  his  life;  the 
failure  of  his  prospects  there,  in  his  brother's  words, 
"deprived  him  of  the  residue  of  his  years."  The 
biography  afterwards  goes  to  and  fro,  —  one  attempt 
after  another  failing ;  some  beginning  in  much  hope, 
but  even  the  sooner  for  that  reason  issuing  in  utter 
despair.  His  literary  powers  came  early  to  full  per- 
fection. For  some  time  after  his  expulsion  from 
Oriel  he  was  resident  in  London ;  and  the  poems 
written  there  are  equal,  perhaps  are  superior,  to  any 
which  he  afterwards  produced.  This  sonnet  may 
serve  as  a  specimen  :  — 

"  In  the  great  city  we  are  met  again, 

Where  many  souls  there  are  that  breathe  and  die 
Scarce  knowing  more  of  nature's  potency 

Than  what  they  learn  from  heat  or  cold  or  rain, 

The  sad  vicissitude  of  weary  pain ; 
For  busy  man  is  lord  of  ear  and  eye, 
And  what  hath  nature  but  the  vast  void  sky 

And  the  thronged  river  toiling  to  the  main? 

Oh  !  say  not  so,  for  she  shall  have  her  part 
In  every  smile,  in  every  tear  that  falls, 

And  she  shall  hide  her  in  the  secret  heart, 
Where  love  persuades  and  sterner  duty  calls ; 

But  worse  it  were  than  death  or  sorrow's  smart, 
To  live  without  a  friend  within  these  walls." 

He  soon,  however,  went  down  to  the  lakes ;  and 
there,  except  during  one  or  two  short  intervals,  he 
lived  and  died.  This  exception  was  a  residence  at 
Leeds,  during  which  he  brought  out,  besides  a  vol- 
ume containing  his  best  poems,  the  book  which 
stands  at  the  head  of  our  article, — the  "Lives  of 
the  Northern  Worthies."  We  selected  the  book,  we 
confess,  with  the  view  mainly  of  bringing  a  remark- 
able character  before  the  notice  of  our  readers ;  but 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  63 

in  itself  the  work  is  an  excellent  one,  and  of  a  rare 
kind. 

Books  are  for  various  purposes :  tracts  to  teach, 
almanacs  to  sell,  poetry  to  make  pastry ;  but  this  is 
the  rarest  sort  of  book,  a  book  to  read.  As  Dr. 
Johnson  said,  "  Sir,  a  good  book  is  one  you  can  hold 
in  your  hand  and  take  to  the  fire."*  Now,  there  are 
extremely  few  books  which  can  with  any  propriety 
be  so  treated.  When  a  great  author,  as  Grote  or 
Gibbon,  has  devoted  a  whole  life  of  horrid  industry 
to  the  composition  of  a  large  history,  one  feels  one 
ought  not  to  touch  it  with  a  mere  hand,  —  it  is  not 
respectful.  The  idea  of  slavery  hovers  over  the 
"Decline  and  Fall":  fancy  a  stiffly  dressed  gentle- 
man, in  a  stiff  chair,  slowly  writing  that  stiff  compi- 
lation in  a  stiff  hand  :  it  is  enough  to  stiffen  you  for 
life.  Or  is  poetry  readable  ?  Of  course  it  is  remem- 
berable  :  when  you  have  it  in  mind  it  clings,  if 
by  heart  it  haunts;  imagery  comes  from  it,  songs 
which  lull  the  ear,  heroines  that  waste  the  time. 
But  this  "  Biographia "  f  is  actually  read;  a  man  is 
glad  to  take  it  up,  and  slow  to  lay  it  down  :  it  is  a 
book  which  is  truly  valuable,  for  it  is  truly  pleasing ; 
and  which  a  man  who  has  once  had  it  in  his  library 
would  miss  from  his  shelves,  not  only  in  the  common 
way  by  a  physical  vacuum,  but  by  a  mental  depri- 
vation. This  strange  quality  it  owes  to  a  peculiarity 
of  style.  Many  people  give  many  theories  of  literary 
composition,  and  Dr.  Blair  (whom  we  will  read)  is 
sometimes  said  to  have  exhausted  the  subject ;  but 
unless  he  has  proved  to  the  contrary,  we  believe  that 
the  knack  in  style  is  to  write  like  a  human  being. 
Some  think  they  must  be  wise,  some  elaborate,  some 
concise ;  Tacitus  wrote  like  a  pair  of  stays ;  some 
startle,  as  Thomas  Carlyle,  or  a  comet  inscribing 

*"  Books  that  you  may  carry  to  the  fire,  and  hold  readily  in  your 
hand,  are  the  most  useful  after  all."  —  Sir  John  Hawkins's  "Life  of  John- 
son"; quoted  in  "  Johnsoniana,"  No.  197. 

t"  Biographia  Borealis." 


64         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

with  his  tail :  but  legibility  is  given  to  those  who 
neglect  these  notions,  and  are  willing  to  be  them- 
selves,—  to  write  their  own  thoughts  in  their  own 
words,  in  the  simplest  words,  in  the  words  wherein 
they  were  thought ;  and  such  and  so  great  was  in 
this  book  the  magnanimity  of  Hartley. 

As  has  been  said,  from  his  youth  onwards  Hart- 
ley's outward  life  was  a  simple  blank.  Much  writing 
and  much  musing,  some  intercourse  with  Words- 
worth, some  talking  to  undergraduate  readers  or 
lake  ladies,  great  loneliness,  and  much  intercourse 
with  the  farmers  of  Cumberland  :  these  pleasures  — 
simple  enough,  most  of  them — were  his  life.  The 
extreme  pleasure  of  the  peasantry  in  his  conversation 
is  particularly  remarked.  "Aye,  but  Mr.  Coleridge 
talks  fine,"  observed  one.  "I  would  go  through  fire 
and  water  for  Mr.  Coleridge,"  interjected  another. 
His  father,  with  real  wisdom,  had  provided  (in  part, 
at  least)  for  his  necessary  wants  in  the  following 
manner :  — 

"This  is  a  codicil  to  my  last  will  and  testament. 

"S.  T.  COLERIDGE. 

"Most  desirous  to  secure,  as  far  as  in  me  lies,  for  my  dear 
son  Hartley,  the  tranquillity  indispensable  to  any  continued  and 
successful  exertion  of  his  literary  talents,  and  which,  from  the  like 
characters  of  our  minds  in  this  respect,  I  know  to  be  especially 
requisite  for  his  happiness,  and  persuaded  that  he  will  recognize 
in  this  provision  that  anxious  affection  by  which  it  is  dictated, 
I  affix  this  codicil  to  my  last  will  and  testament.  .  .  .  And  I 
hereby  request  them  (the  said  trustees)  to  hold  the  sum  accruing 
to  Hartley  Coleridge  from  the  equal  division  of  my  total  bequest 
between  him,  his  brother  Derwent,  and  his  sister  Sara  Coleridge, 
after  his  mother's  decease,  to  dispose  of  the  interest  or  proceeds 
of  the  same  portion  to  or  for  the  use  of  my  dear  son  Hartley 
Coleridge,  at  such  time  or  times,  in  such  manner',  and  under  such 
conditions,  as  they,  the  trustees  above  named,  know  to  be  my  wish, 
and  shall  deem  conducive  to  the  attainment  of  my  object  in  adding 
this  codicil ;  namely,  the  anxious  wish  to  insure  for  my  son  the 
continued  means  of  a  home,  —  in  which  I  comprise  board,  lodging, 
<and  raiment.  Providing  that  nothing  in  this  codicil  shall  be  so 
interpreted  as  to  interfere  with  my  son  Hartley  Coleridge's  freedom 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  65 

of  choice  respecting  his  place  of  residence,  or  with  his  power  of 
disposing  of  his  portion  by  will  after  his  decease  according  as  his 
own  judgment  and  affections  may  decide."  [July  2,  1835.] 

An  excellent  provision,  which  would  not,  how- 
ever, by  the  English  law,  have  disabled  the  -"said 
Hartley"  from  depriving  himself  of  "the  continued 
means  of  a  home"  by  alienating  the  principal  of  the 
bequest ;  since  the  jurisprudence  of  this  country  has 
no  legal  definition  of  "prodigality,"  and  does  not  con- 
sider any  person  incompetent  to  manage  his  pecun- 
iary affairs  unless  he  be  quite  and  certainly  insane. 
Yet  there  undoubtedly  are  persons  —  and  poor  Hartley 
was  one  of  them — who,  though  in  general  perfectly 
sane,  and  even  with  superior  powers  of  thought  or 
fancy,  are  as  completely  unable  as  the  most  helpless 
lunatic  to  manage  any  pecuniary  transactions,  and 
to  whom  it  would  be  a  great  gain  to  have  perpetual 
guardians  and  compulsory  trustees  ;  but  such  people 
are  rare,  and  few  principles  are  so  English  as  the 
maxim  De  minimis  non  curat  lex.  * 

He  lived  in  this  way  for  thirty  years,  or  nearly 
so;  but  there  is  nothing  to  tell  of  all  that  time. 
He  died  Jan.  6,  1849,  and  was  buried  in  Grasmere 
churchyard,  the  quietest  place  in  England;  "under 
the  yews,"  as  Arnold  says,  "which  Wordsworth 
planted,  .  .  .  the  Rotha  with  its  deep  and  silent  pools 
passing  by."  f  It  was  a  shining  January  day  when 
Hartley  was  borne  to  the  grave.  "Keep  the  ground 
for  us,"  said  Mr.  Wordsworth  to  the  sexton:  "we  are 
old  people,  and  it  cannot  be  for  long." 

We  have  described  Hartley's  life  at  length  for  a 
peculiar  reason.  It  is  necessary  to  comprehend  his 
character  to  appreciate  his  works ;  and  there  is  no 
way  of  delineating  character  but  by  a  selection  of 
characteristic  sayings  and  actions.  All  poets,  as  is 
commonly  observed,  are  delineated  in  their  poems ; 

*"  The  law  does  not  care  for  trifles." 

t  Dr.  Arnold's  Life  of  Dean  Stanley,  close  of  Chap.  iv. 

VOL.  I.  —5 


06  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

but  in  very  different  modes.  Each  minute  event  in 
the  melancholy  life  of  Shelley  is  frequently  alluded 
to  in  his  writings ;  the  tender  and  reverential  charac- 
ter of  Virgil  is  everywhere  conspicuous  in  his  pages ; 
it  is  clear  that  Chaucer  was  shrewd ;  we  seem  to 
have  talked  with  Shakespeare,  though  we  have  for- 
gotten the  facts  of  his  life  :  but  it  is  not  by  minute 
allusion  or  a  tacit  influence  or  a  genial  and  delight- 
ful sympathy  that  a  writer  like  Hartley  Coleridge 
leaves  the  impress  of  himself,  but  in  a  more  direct 
manner,  which  it  will  take  a  few  words  to  describe. 

Poetry  begins  in  Impersonality.  Homer  is  a  voice, 
—  a  fine  voice, —  a  fine  eye,  and  a  brain  that  drew 
with  light ;  and  this  is  all  we  know.  The  natural 
subjects  of  the  first  art  are  the  scenes  and  events  in 
which  the  first  men  naturally  take  an  interest.  They 
don't  care  —  who  does?  —  for  a  kind  old  man:  but 
they  want  to  hear  of  the  exploits  of  their  ancestors, 
of  the  heroes  of  their  childhood,  of  them  that  their 
fathers  saw,  of  the  founders  of  their  own  land ;  of 
wars  and  rumors  of  wars,  of  great  victories  boldly 
won,  of  heavy  defeats  firmly  borne,  of  desperate  dis- 
asters unsparingly  retrieved.  So  in  all  countries : 
Siegfried  or  Charlemagne  or  Arthur,  —  they  are  but 
attempts  at  an  Achilles;  the  subject  is  the  same, 
the  icXea  dvdp&v*  and  the  death  that  comes  to  all.  But 
then  the  mist  of  battles  passes  away,  and  the  sound 
of  the  daily  conflict  no  longer  hurtles  in  the  air,  and 
a  generation  arises  skilled  with  the  skill  of  peace 
and  refined  with  the  refinement  of  civilization,  yet 
still  remembering  the  old  world,  still  appreciating  the 
old  life,  still  wondering  at  the  old  men,  and  ready  to 
receive  at  the  hand  of  the  poet  a  new  telling  of  the 
old  tale,  a  new  idealization  of  the  legendary  tradition. 
This  is  the  age  of  dramatic  art,  when  men  wonder  at 
the  big  characters  of  old,  as  schoolboys  at  the  words 
of  JEschylus,  and  try  to  find  in  their  own  breasts  the 
roots  of  those  monstrous  but  artistically  developed 

*  "Glories  of  men."— "Iliad,"  ix.  189,  534;   "Odyssey,"  viii.  73. 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  67 

impersonations.  With  civilization  too  comes  another 
change :  men  wish  not  only  to  tell  what  they  have 
seen,  but  also  to  express  what  they  are  conscious  of. 
Barbarians  feel  only  hunger,  and  that  is  not  lyrical ; 
but  as  time  runs  on,  arise  gentler  emotions  and  finer 
moods  and  more  delicate  desires,  which  need  express- 
ion, and  require  from  the  artist's  fancy  the  lightest 
touches  and  the  most  soothing  and  insinuating  words. 
Lyrical  poetry,  too,  as  we  know,  is  of  various  kinds. 
Some,  as  the  war  song,  approach  to  the  epic,  depict 
events  and  stimulate  to  triumph;  others  are  love 
songs  to  pour  out  wisdom,  others  sober  to  describe 
champagne ;  some  passive  and  still,  and  expressive 
of  the  higher  melancholy,  as  Gray's  "Elegy  in  a 
Country  Churchyard."  But  with  whatever  differences 
of  species  and  class,  the  essence  of  lyrical  poetry 
remains  in  all  identical :  it  is  designed  to  express,  and 
when  successful  does  express,  some  one  mood,  some 
single  sentiment,  some  isolated  longing  in  human 
nature.  It  deals  not  with  man  as  a  whole,  but  with 
man  piecemeal,  with  man  in  a  scenic  aspect,  with 
man  in  a  peculiar  light.  Hence  lyrical  poets  must 
not  be  judged  literally  from  their  lyrics :  they  are 
discourses ;  they  require  to  be  reduced  into  the  scale 
of  ordinary  life,  to  be  stripped  of  the  enraptured  ele- 
ment, to  be  clogged  with  gravitating  prose.  Again, 
moreover,  and  in  course  of  time,  the  advance  of  ages 
and  the  progress  of  civilization  appear  to  produce  a 
new  species  of  poetry,  which  is  distinct  from  the  lyr- 
ical though  it  grows  out  of  it,  and  contrasted  with 
the  epic  though  in  a  single  respect  it  exactly  resem- 
bles it.  This  kind  may  be  called  the  self-delineative; 
for  in  it  the  poet  deals  not  with  a  particular  desire, 
sentiment,  or  inclination  in  his  own  mind,  not  with 
a  special  phase  of  his  own  character,  not  with  his 
love  of  war,  his  love  of  ladies,  his  melancholy,  but 
with  his  mind  viewed  as  a  whole,  with  the  entire 
essence  of  his  own  character.  The  first  requisite  of 
this  poetry  is  truth.  It  is,  in  Plato's  phrase,  the  soul 


68         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"itself  by  itself,"  aspiring  to  view  and  take  account 
of  the  particular  notes  and  marks  that  distinguish  it 
from  all  other  souls.  The  sense  of  reality  is  neces- 
sary to  excellence :  the  poet,  being  himself,  speaks 
like  one  who  has  authority ;  he  knows  and  must  not 
deceive.  This  species  of  poetry,  of  course,  adjoins  on 
the  lyrical,  out  of  which  it  historically  arises.  Such 
a  poem  as  the  "Elegy"  is,  a's  it  were,  on  the  borders 
of  the  two ;  for  while  it  expresses  but  a  single  emo- 
tion,— meditative  melancholy, — you  seem  to  feel  that 
this  sentiment  is  not  only  then  and  for  a  moment 
the  uppermost,  but  (as  with  Gray  it  was)  the  habit- 
ual mood,  the  pervading  emotion  of  his  whole  life. 
Moreover,  in  one  especial  peculiarity  this  sort  of 
poetry  is  analogous  to  the  narrative  or  epic.  Nothing, 
certainly,  can  in  a  general  aspect  be  more  distantly 
removed  one  from  another,  —  the  one  dealing  in  ex- 
ternal objects  and  stirring  events,  the  other  with  the 
stillness  and  repose  of  the  poet's  mind ;  but  still,  in  a 
single  characteristic  the  two  coincide,  —  they  describe 
character,  as  the  painters  say,  in  mass.  The  defect 
of  the  drama  is,  that  it  can  delineate  only  motion  : 
if  a  thoughtful  person  will  compare  the  character 
of  Achilles,  as  we  find  it  in  Homer,  with  the  more 
surpassing  creations  of  dramatic  invention,  say  with 
Lear  or  Othello,  he  will  perhaps  feel  that  character 
in  repose,  character  on  the  lonely  beach,  character 
in  marble,  character  in  itself,  is  more  clearly  and  per- 
fectly seen  in  the  epic  narrative  than  in  the  conver- 
sational drama ;  it  of  course  requires  immense  skill  to 
make  mere  talk  exhibit  a  man  as  he  is  erapwv  d'^ap.* 
Now,  this  quality  of  epic  poetry  the  self-delineative 
precisely  shares  with  it :  it  describes  a  character— 
the  poet's  —  alone  by  itself.  And  therefore,  when  the 
great  master  in  both  kinds  did  not  hesitate  to  turn 
aside  from  his  "high  argument"  to  say, — 

"More  safe  I  sing  with  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fallen  on  evil  days,"t 


*  Meaningless ;  perhaps  a  slip  for  irdpuv  arep  (apart  from  companions). — ED. 
t"  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  vii.,  opening  apostrophe.  ' 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  69 

pedants  may  prose  as  they  please  about  the  "im- 
propriety" of  "interspersing"  species  of  composition 
which  are  by  nature  remote  :  but  Milton  felt,  more 
profoundly,  that  in  its  treatment  of  character  the 
egotistical  poetry  is  allied  to  the  epic ;  that  he  was 
putting  together  elements  which  would  harmoniously 
combine  ;  that  he  was  but  exerting  the  same  facul- 
ties in  either  case, — being  guided  thereto  by  a  sure 
instinct,  the  desire  of  genius  to  handle  and  combine 
every  one  of  the  subjects  on  which  it  is  genius. 

Now,  it  is  in  this  self-delineative  species  of  poetry 
that,  in  our  judgment,  Hartley  Coleridge  has  attained 
to  nearly  if  not  quite  the  highest  excellence.  It  per- 
vades his  writings  everywhere ;  but  a  few  sonnets 
may  be  quoted  to  exemplify  it :  — 

"We  parted  on  the  mountains,  as  two  streams 

From  one  clear  spring  pursue  their  several  ways ; 

And  thy  fleet  course  hath  been  through  many  a  maze 
In  foreign  lands,  where  silvery  Padus  gleams 
To  that  delicious  sky  whose  glowing  beams 

Brightened  the  tresses  that  old  poets  praise ; 

"Where  Petrarch's  patient  love  and  artful  lays, 
And  Ariosto's  song  of  many  themes, 
Moved  the  soft  air.     But  I,  a  lazy  brook, 

As  close  pent  up  within  my  native  dell, 
Have  crept  along  from  nook  to  shady  nook, 

Where  flow'rets  blow  and  whispering  naiads  dwell. 
Yet  now  we  meet  that  parted  were  so  wide, 
O'er  rough  and  smooth  to  travel  side  by  side. 

"Once  I  was  young,  and  fancy  was  my  all, — 

My  love,  my  joy,  my  grief,  my  hope,  my  fear, 

And  ever  ready  as  an  infant's  tear ; 
Whate'er  in  fancy's  kingdom  might  befall, 
Some  quaint  device  had  fancy  still  at  call, 

With  seemly  verse  to  greet  the  coming  cheer. 

Such  grief  to  soothe,  such  airy  hope  to  rear, 
To  sing  the  birth-song  or  the  funeral 
Of  such  light  love,  it  was  a  pleasant  task  : 

But  ill  accord  the  quirks  of  wayward  glee, 
That  wears  affliction  for  a  wanton  mask, 

With  woes  that  bear  not  fancy's  livery; 


70         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

With  hope  that  scorns  of  fate  its  fate  to  ask, 
But  is  itself  its  own  sure  destiny. 

"Too  true  it  is,  my  time  of  power  was  spent 

In  idly  watering  weeds  of  casual  growth  ; 

That  wasted  energy  to  desperate  sloth 
Declined,  and  fond  self-seeking  discontent ; 
That  the  huge  debt  for  all  that  nature  lent 

I  sought  to  cancel,  and  was  nothing  loth 

To  deem  myself  an  outlaw,  severed  both 
From  duty  and  from  hope,  —  yea,  blindly  sent 
Without  an  errand,  where  I  would  to  stray  : 

Too  true  it  is,  that,  knowing  now  my  state, 

I  weakly  mourn  the  sin  I  ought  to  hate, 
Nor  love  the  law  I  yet  would  fain  obey : 

But  true  it  is,  above  all  law  and  fate 
Is  faith,  abiding  the  appointed  day. 

"Long  time  a  child,  and  still  a  child  when  years 
Had  painted  manhood  on  my  cheek,  was  I,  — 
For  yet  I  lived  like  one  not  born  to  die ;  ' 

A  thriftless  prodigal  of  smiles  and  tears, 

No  hope  I  needed,  and  I  knew  no  fears. 
But  sleep,  though  sweet,  is  only  sleep,  and  waking, 
I  waked  to  sleep  no  more,  at  once  o'ertaking 

The  vanguard  of  my  age,  with  all  arrears 

Of  duty  on  my  back.     Nor  child  nor  man 
Nor  youth  nor  sage,  I  find  my  head  is  gray, 

For  I  have  lost  the  race  I  never  ran ; 
A  rathe  December  blights  my  lagging  May ; 

And  still  I  am  a  child,  though  I  be  old  : 

Time  is  my  debtor  for  my  years  untold." 

Indeed,  the  whole  series  of  sonnets  with  which 
the  earliest  and  best  work  of  Hartley  began  is  (with 
a  casual  episode  on  others)  mainly  and  essentially  a 
series  on  himself.  Perhaps  there  is  something  in  the 
structure  of  the  sonnet  rather  adapted  to  this  spe- 
cies of  composition  :  it  is  too  short  for  narrative,  too 
artificial  for  the  intense  passions,  too  complex  for 
the  simple,  too  elaborate  for  the  domestic ;  but  in  an 
impatient  world  where  there  is  not  a  premium  on 
self -describing,  whoso  would  speak  of  himself  must  be 


HARTLEY   COLERJDGE.  71 

wise  and  brief,  artful  and  composed, — and  in  these 
respects  he  will  be  aided  by  the  concise  dignity  of 
the  tranquil  sonnet. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  too,  Hartley  Cole- 
ridge resembled  his  father.  Turn  over  the  early 
poems  of  S.  T.  Coleridge, — the  minor  poems:  we 
exclude  the  "Mariner"  and  " Christabel,"  which  are 
his  epics,  but  the  small  shreds  which  Bristol  wor- 
shiped and  Cottle  paid  for,  —  and  you  will  be  disheart- 
ened by  utter  dullness.  Taken  on  a  decent  average, 
and  perhaps  excluding  a  verse  here  and  there,  it 
really  seems  to  us  that  they  are  inferior  to  the  daily 
works  of  the  undeserving  and  multiplied  poets.  If 
any  reader  will  peruse  any  six  of  the  several  works 
entitled  "Poems  by  a  Young  Gentleman,"  we  be- 
lieve he  will  find  the  refined  anonymity  less  insipid 
than  the  small  productions  of  Samuel  Taylor,  —  there 
will  be  less  puff  and  less  ostentation.  The  reputation 
of  the  latter  was  caused  not  by  their  merit  but  by 
their  time.  Fifty  years  ago  people  believed  in  metre, 
and  it  is  plain  that  Coleridge  (Southey  may  be  added, 
for  that  matter)  believed  in  it  also :  the  people  in 
Bristol  said  that  these  two  were  wonderful  men,  be- 
cause they  had  written  wonderfully  small  verses ; 
and  such  is  human  vanity,  that  both  for  a  time  ac- 
cepted the  creed.  In  Coleridge,  who  had  large  specu- 
lative sense,  the  hallucination  was  not  permanent,  — 
there  are  many  traces  that  he  rated  his  "Juvenilia" 
at  their  value ;  but  poor  Southey,  who  lived  with 
domestic  women,  actually  died  in  the  delusion  that 
his  early  works  were  perfect,  except  that  he  tried  to 
"amend"  the  energy  out  of  "Joan  of  Arc,"  which 
was  the  only  good  thing  in  it.  His  wife  did  not 
doubt  that  he  had  produced  stupendous  works  :  why 
then  should  he  ?  But  experience  has  now  shown 
that  a  certain  metrical  facility,  and  a  pleasure  in  the 
metrical  expression  of  certain  sentiments,  are  in  youth 
extremely  common.  Many  years  ago,  Mr.  Moore  is 
reported  to  have  remarked  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  that 


72  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

hardly  a  magazine  was  then  published  which  did  not 
contain  verses  that  would  have  made  a  sensation 
when  they  were  young  men  :  "Ecod,"  was  the  reply, 
."we  were  in  the  luck  of  it  to  come  before  these 
fellows."*  And  though  neither  Moore  nor  Scott  is 
to  be  confounded  with  the  nameless  and  industrious 
versifiers  of  the  present  day,  yet  it  must  be  allowed 
that  they  owed  to  their  time  and  their  position  —  to 
the  small  quantity  of  rhyme  in  the  market  of 
the  moment,  and  the  extravagant  appreciation  of 
their  early  productions  —  much  of  that  popular  encour- 
agement which  induced  them  to  labor  upon  more 
excellent  compositions,  and  to  train  themselves  to 
write  what  they  will  be  remembered  by.  But,  dis- 
missing these  considerations  and  returning  to  the 
minor  poems  of  S.  T.  Coleridge :  although  we  fear- 
lessly assert  that  it  is  impossible  for  any  sane  man 
to  set  any  value  on  —  say  the  "Religious  Musings," 
an  absurd  attempt  to  versify  an  abstract  theory,  or 
the  essay  on  the  Pixies,  who  had  more  fun  in  them 
than  the  reader  of  it  could  suspect,  —  it  still  is  indis- 
putable that  scattered  here  and  there  through  these 
poems  there  are  lines  about  himself  (lines,  as  he  said 
in  later  life,  "in  which  the  subjective  object  views 
itself  subjectivo-objectively"  f )  which  rank  high  in 
that  form  of  art.  Of  this  kind  are  the  "  Tombless 
Epitaph,"  for  example,  or  the  lines  — 

"To  me  hath  Heaven  with  bounteous  hand  assigned 
Energic  Eeason  and  a  shaping  mind, 
The  daring  ken  of  Truth,  the  Patriot's  part, 
And  Pity's  sigh  that  breathes  the  gentle  heart,  — 
Sloth- jaundiced  all !  and  from  my  graspless  hand 
Drop  Friendship's  priceless  pearls,  like  hour-glass  sand. 
I  weep,  yet  stoop  not !    The  faint  anguish  flows, 
A  dreamy  pang  in  morning's  feverish  doze ; "  J 

and  so  on.  In  fact,  it  would  appear  that  the  tend- 
ency to  and  the  faculty  for  self-delineation  are  very 


*Lockhart,  Vol.  vi.,  Chap.  iii. 

1 1  suspect  some  of  Bagehot's  Coleridgiana  came  verbally  from  Crabb 
Robinson. —ED.  f  Lines  on  a  Friend,"  November,  1794. 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  73 

closely  connected  with  the  dreaminess  of  disposition 
and  impotence  of  character  which  we  spoke  of  just 
now.  Persons  very  subject  to  these  can  grasp  no 
external  object,  comprehend  no  external  being ;  they 
can  do  no  external  thing:  and  therefore  they  are  left 
to  themselves.  Their  own  character  is  the  only  one 
which  they  can  view  as  a  whole,  or  depict  as  a  real- 
ity :  of  every  other  they  may  have  glimpses,  and 
acute  glimpses,  like  the  vivid  truthfulness  of  particu- 
lar dreams ;  but  no  settled  appreciation,  no  connected 
development,  no  regular  sequence  whereby  they  may 
be  exhibited  on  paper  or  conceived  in  the  imagina- 
tion. If  other  qualities  are  supposed  to  be  identical, 
those  will  be  most  egotistical  who  only  know  them- 
selves ;  the  people  who  talk  most  of  themselves  will 
be  those  who  talk  best. 

In  the  execution  of  minor  verses,  we  think  we 
could  show  that  Hartley  should  have  the  praise  of 
surpassing  his  father ;  but  nevertheless  it  would  be 
absurd,  on  a  general  view,  to  compare  the  two  men, 
Samuel  Taylor  was  so  much  bigger.  What  there  was 
in  his  son  was  equally  good,  perhaps,  but  then  there 
was  not  much  of  it ;  outwardly  and  inwardly  he  was 
essentially  little.  In  poetry,  for  example,  the  father 
has  produced  two  longish  poems  which  have  worked 
themselves  right  down  to  the  extreme  depths  of  the 
popular  memory,  and  stay  there  very  firmly ;  in  part 
from  their  strangeness,  but  in  part  from  their  power. 
Of  Hartley,  nothing  of  this  kind  is  to  be  found. 
He  could  not  write  connectedly :  he  wanted  steadi- 
ness of  purpose  or  efficiency  of  will  to  write  so  vol- 
untarily ;  and  his  genius  did  not,  involuntarily  and 
out  of  its  unseen  workings,  present  him  with  contin- 
uous creations,  —  on  the  contrary,  his  mind  teemed 
with  little  fancies,  and  a  new  one  came  before  the 
first  had  attained  any  enormous  magnitude.  As  his 
brother  observed,  he  wanted  "back  thought."  "On 
what  principle,  Mr.  Coleridge,  are  you  arranging 
your  books?"  inquired  a  lady.  "Principle,  madam! 


74  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

principle !  I  had  a  plan  in  my  head ;  but  I  have 
just  abandoned  it,  and  not  yet  concocted  another." 
The  same  contrast  between  the  ''shaping  mind"  of 
the  father  and  the  gentle  and  minute  genius  of  the 
son  is  said  to  have  been  very  plain  in  their  con- 
versation. That  of  Samuel  was  continuous,  diffused, 
comprehensive  : 

"  Strongly  it  bears  us  along  in  swelling  and  limitless  motion, 
Nothing  before  and  nothing  behind  but  the  sky  and  the  ocean."* 

"Excellent  talker,  very,"  said  Hazlitt,  "if  you  will 
let  him  start  from  no  premises  and  come  to  no  con- 
clusion." f  The  talk  of  Hartley,  on  the  contrary, 
though  continuous  in  time,  was  detached  in  meaning  : 
stating  hints  and  observations  on  particular  subjects  ; 
glancing  lightly  from  side  to  side,  but  throwing  no 
intense  light  on  any,  and  exhausting  none.  It  flowed 
gently  over  small  doubts  and  pleasant  difficulties, 
rippling  for  a  minute  sometimes  into  bombast,  but 
lightly  recovering  and  falling  quietly  "in  melody 
back."J 

By  way,  it  is  likely,  of  compensation  to  Hartley 
for  this  great  deficiency  in  what  his  father  imagined 
to  be  his  own  forte, — the  power  of  conceiving  a 
whole,  —  Hartley  possessed  in  a  considerable  degree  a 
species  of  sensibility  to  which  the  former  was  nearly 
a  stranger.  "The  mind  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  says  one 
who  had  every  means  of  knowing  and  observing, 
"was  not  in  the  least  under  the  influence  of  exter- 
nal objects."  §  Except  in  the  writings  written  during 
daily  and  confidential  intimacy  with  Wordsworth  (an 
exception  that  may  be  obviously  accounted  for),  no 
trace  can  perhaps  be  found  of  any  new  image  or 
metaphor  from  natural  scenery  ;  there  is  some  story, 
too,  of  his  going  for  the  first  time  to  York,  and  by 

*  Coleridge's  translation  of  Schiller's  sample  of  the  epic  hexameter,  — 
except  "billows"  for  "motion." 

tCarlyle's  "Life  of  Sterling,"  Chap.  viii. 

t  "  In  the  pentameter  aye  falling  in  melody  back;"  —  Coleridge's  trans- 
lation of  Schiller's  sample  of  the  classic  pentameter. 

§  (?)  Not  found. 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  75 

the  minster,  and  never  looking  up  at  it.  *  But  Hart- 
ley's poems  exhibit  a  great  sensibility  to  a  certain 
aspect  of  exterior  nature,  and  great  fanciful  power 
of  presenting  that  aspect  in  the  most  charming  and 
attractive  forms.  It  is  likely  that  the  London  boy- 
hood of  the  elder  Coleridge  was  —  added  to  a  strong 
abstractedness  which  was  born  with  him  —  a  power- 
ful cause  in  bringing  about  the  curious  mental  fact 
that  a  great  poet,  so  susceptible  to  every  other  spe- 
cies of  refining  and  delightful  feeling,  should  have 
been  utterly  destitute  of  any  perception  of  beauty 
in  landscape  or  nature ;  we  must  not  forget  that 
S.  T.  Coleridge  was  a  blue-coat  boy,  —  what  do  any  of 
them  know  about  fields  ?  and  similarly,  we  require 
in  Hartley's  case,  before  we  can  quite  estimate  his 
appreciation  of  nature,  to  consider  his  position,  his 
circumstances,  and  especially  his  time. 

Now  it  came  to  pass  in  those  days  that  William 
Wordsworth  went  up  into  the  hills.  It  has  been 
attempted  in  recent  years  to  establish  that  the  object 
of  his  life  was  to  teach  Anglicanism ;  a  whole  life 
of  him  has  been  written  by  an  official  gentleman, 
with  the  apparent  view  of  establishing  that  the  great 
poet  was  a  believer  in  rood-lofts,  an  idolater  of  pisci- 
nae :  but  this  is  not  capable  of  rational  demonstration. 
Wordsworth,  like  Coleridge,  began  life  as  a  heretic ; 
and  as  the  shrewd  pope  unfallaciously  said,  "Once 
a  heretic,  always  a  heretic."  Sound  men  are  sound 
from  the  first,  safe  men  are  safe  from  the  begin- 
ning ;  and  Wordsworth  began  wrong.  His  real  reason 
for  going  to  live  in  the  mountains  was  certainly  in 
part  sacred,  but  it  was  not  in  the  least  Tractarian; 

"For  he  with  many  feelings,  many  thoughts, 
Made  up  a  meditative  joy,  and  found 
Religious  meanings  in  the  forms  of  nature."! 

His  whole  soul  was  absorbed  in  the  one  idea,  the  one 
feeling,  the  one  thought,  of  the  sacredness  of  hills. 

*  Cottle's  "Reminiscences,"  page  233. 

t Coleridge,  "Fears  iu  Solitude"  (1798);  "And"  In  place  of  "For." 


76  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

"Early  had  he  learned 
To  reverence  the  volume  that  displays 
The  mystery,  the  life  which  cannot  die ; 
But  in  the  mountains  did  he  feel  his  faith. 
All  things,  responsive  to  the  writing,  there 
Breathed  immortality,  revolving  life, 
And  greatness  still  revolving,  —  infinite; 
There  littleness  was  not. 

"In  the  after-day 

Of  boyhood,  many  an  hour  in  caves  forlorn, 
And  'mid  the  hollow  depths  of  naked  crags, 
He  sate ;  and  even  in  their  fixed  lineaments, 
Or  from  the  power  of  a  peculiar  eye, 
Or  by  creative  feeling  overborne, 
Or  by  predominance  of  thought  oppressed, 
Even  in  their  fixed  and  steady  lineaments 
He  traced  an  ebbing  and  a  flowing  mind, 
Expression  ever  varying  !  "  * 

"A  sense  sublime 

Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
"Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things,  "t 

The  defect  of  this  religion  is,  that  it  is  too  abstract 
for  the  practical  and  too  bare  for  the  musing.  The 
worship  of  sensuous  beauty  —  the  Southern  religion  — 
is  of  all  sentiments  the  one  most  deficient  in  his 
writings.  His  poetry  hardly  even  gives  the  charm, 
the  entire  charm,  of  the  scenery  in  which  he  lived  : 
the  lighter  parts  are  little  noticed,  the  rugged  parts 
protrude  ;  the  bare  waste,  the  folding  hill,  the  rough 
lake,  Helvellyn  with  a  brooding  mist,  Ulswater  in  a 
gray  day, — these  are  his  subjects;  he  took  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  the  corners  of  the  universe.  There 
is  a  print  of  Rembrandt  said  to  represent  a  piece  of 

*  "  Excursion,"  Book  i.  t  "  Tintera  Abbey." 


HARTLEY  COLERIDGE.  77 

the  Campagna, — a  mere  waste,  with  a  stump  and  a 
man, — and  under  is  written,  "Tacet  et  loquitur;"* 
and  thousands  will  pass  the  old  print-shop  where  it 
hangs,  and  yet  have  a  taste  for  paintings  and  col- 
ors and  oils  :  but  some  fanciful  students,  some  lonely 
stragglers,  some  long-haired  enthusiasts,  by  chance  will 
come,  one  by  one,  and  look,  and  look,  and  be  hardly 
able  to  take  their  eyes  from  the  fascination,  so 
massive  is  the  shade,  so  still  the  conception,  so  firm 
the  execution.  Thus  is  it  with  Wordsworth  and  his 
poetry :  tacet  et  loquitur.  Fashion  apart,  the  million 
won't  read  it.  Why  should  they  ?  they  could  not 
understand  it.  Don't  put  them  out,  —  let  them  buy 
and  sell  and  die;  —  but  idle  students  and  enthusias- 
tic wanderers  and  solitary  thinkers  will  read,  and 
read,  and  read,  while  their  lives  and  their  occupa- 
tions hold.  In  truth,  his  works  are  the  Scriptures 
of  the  intellectual  life ;  for  that  same  searching  and 
finding  and  penetrating  power  which  the  real  Scrip- 
ture exercises  on  those  engaged,  as  are  the  mass  of 
men,  in  practical  occupations  and  domestic  ties,  do 
his  works  exercise  on  the  meditative,  the  solitary, 
and  the  young,  f 

"His  daily  teachers  had  been  woods  and  rills, 

The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky, 
The  sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills,  "f 

And  he  had  more  than  others 

"That  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world 
Is  lightened  :  that  serene  and  blessed  mood 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on, 
Until  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame, 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 


*"It  is  silent  and  speaks." 

t"  Young  men  of  strong  sensibility  and  meditative  minds."  —  Coleridge, 
"  Biographia  Literaria,"  Chap.  xiv. 
J"  Feast  of  Brougham  Castle." 


78  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 

In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul ; 

While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 

Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 

"We  see  into  the  life  of  things."* 

And  therefore  he  has  had  a  whole  host  of  sacred 
imitators.  Mr.  Keble,  for  example,  has  translated  him 
for  women :  ha  has  himself  told  us  that  he  owed  to 
Wordsworth  the  tendency  ad  sanctiora  which  is  the 
mark  of  his  own  writings ;  and  in  fact  he  has  but 
adapted  the  tone  and  habit  of  reverence,  which  his 
master  applied  to  common  objects  and  the  course  of 
the  seasons,  to  sacred  objects  and  the  course  of  the 
ecclesiastical  year, — diffusing  a  mist  of  sentiment  and 
devotion  altogether  delicious  to  a  gentle  and  timid 
devotee.  Hartley  Coleridge  is  another  translator  :  he 
has  applied  to  the  sensuous  beauties  and  seductive 
parts  of  external  nature  the  same  cultus  which 
Wordsworth  applied  to  the  bare  and  the  abstract.  It  is 

"That  fair  beauty  which  no  eye  can  see, 
.  .  .  that  sweet  music  which  no  ear  can  measure  ; "  t 

it  is,  as  it  were,  female  beauty  in  wood  and  water ; 
it  is  Rydal  Water  on  a  shining  day  ;  it  is  the  gloss 
of  the  world,  with  the  knowledge  that  it  is  gloss ; 
the  sense  of  beauty,  as  in  some  women,  with  the 
feeling  that  yet  it  is  hardly  theirs. 

"The  vale  of  Tempe  had  in  vain  been  fair, 
Green  Ida  never  deemed  the  nurse  of  Jove, 
Each  fabled  stream  beneath  its  covert  grove 

Had  idly  murmured  to  the  idle  air, 

The  shaggy  wolf  had  kept  his  horrid  lair 
In  Delphi's  cell  and  old  Trophonius's  cave, 
And  the  wild  wailing  of  the  Ionian  wave 

Had  never  blended  with  the  sweet  despair 

Of  Sappho's  death-song,  if  the  sight  inspired 
Saw  only  what  the  visual  organs  show  ; 


*"Tintern  Abbey." 

t  Hartley  Coleridge,  Sonnet. 


HARTLEY   COLERIDGE.  79 

If  heaven-born  phantasy  no  more  required 

Than  what  within  the  sphere  of  sense  may  grow. 
The  beauty  to  perceive  of  earthly  things, 
The  mounting  soul  must  heavenward  prune  her  wings.  "  * 

And  he  knew  it  himself;  he  has  sketched  the  essence 
of  his  works  :  — 

"Whither  is  gone  the  wisdom  and  the  power 
That  ancient  sages  scattered  with  the  notes 
Of  thought-suggesting  lyres  ?    The  music  floats 

In  the  void  air ;   e'en  at  this  breathing  hour, 

In  every  cell  and  every  blooming  bower 
The  sweetness  of  old  lays  is  hovering  still : 
But  the  strong  soul,  the  self-constraining  will, 

The  rugged  root  that  bare  the  winsome  flower, 

Is  weak  and  withered.     Were  we  like  the  fays 
That  sweetly  nestle  in  the  foxglove  bells, 
Or  lurk  and  murmur  in  the  rose-lipped  shells 

"Which  Neptune  to  the  earth  for  quit-rent  pays, 
Then  might  our  pretty  modern  Philomels 

Sustain  our  spirits  with  their  roundelays." 

We  had  more  to  say  of  Hartley :  we  were  to  show 
that  his  "Prometheus"  was  defective, — that  its  style 
had  no  Greek  severity,  no  defined  outline;  that  he 
was  a  critic  as  well  as  a  poet,  though  in  a  small 
detached  way,  and  what  is  odd  enough,  that  he  could 
criticize  in  rhyme ;  we  were  to  make  plain  how  his 
heart  was  in  the  right  place,  how  his  love  affairs 
were  hopeless,  how  he  was  misled  by  his  friends : 
but  our  time  is  done  and  our  space  is  full,  and  these 
topics  must  "go  without  day"  of  returning.  We 
may  end  as  we  began  :  there  are  some  that  are  bold 
and  strong  and  incessant  and  energetic  and  hard, 
and  to  these  is  the  world's  glory ;  and  some  are 
timid  and  meek  and  impotent  and  cowardly  and  re- 
jected and  obscure.  "One  man  esteemeth  one  day 
above  another,  another  esteemeth  every  day  alike."  f 
And  so  of  Hartley,  whom  few  regarded.  He  had  a 


*  Hartley  Coleridge,  Sonnet. 
tRoui.  xiv.  15. 


80  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

resource :    the  stillness  of  thought,  the  gentleness   of 
musing,  the  peace  of  nature. 

"To  his  side  the  fallow-deer 
Came,  and  rested  without  fear : 
The  eagle,  lord  of  land  and  sea, 
Stooped  down  to  pay  him  fealty: 
And  both  the  undying  fish  that  swim 
Through  Bowscale-tarn  did  wait  on  him ; 
The  pair  were  servants  of  his  eye, 
In  their  immortality  ; 
And  glancing,  gleaming,  dark  or  bright, 
Moved  to  and  fro  for  his  delight. 
He  knew  the  rocks  which  angels  haunt, 
Upon  the  mountains  visitant, — 
He  hath  kenned  them  taking  wing ; 
And  into  caves  where  faeries  sing 
He  hath  entered  ;  and  been  told 
By  Voices  how  men  lived  of  old. 
Among  the  heavens  his  eye  can  see 
The  face  of  thing  that  is  to  be ; 
And  if  that  men  report  him  right, 
His  tongue  could  whisper  words  of  might. 
—  Now  another  day  is  come, 
Fitter  hope  and  nobler  doom; 
He  hath  thrown  aside  his  crook, 
And  hath  buried  deep  his  book."* 

"And  now  the  streams  may  sing  for  others'  pleasure, 
The  hills  sleep  on  in  their  eternity,  "t 

He  is  gone  from  among  them. 

*  "Feast  of  Brougham  Castle." 
t  Hartley  Coleridge,  Sonnet. 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY* 

(1850.) 

[All  uncredited  biographic  details  and  quotations  in  this  essay  are  from 
Medwin.  —  ED.] 

AFTER  the  long  biography  of  Moore,  f  it  is  half  a 
comfort  to  think  of  a  poet  as  to  whom  our  infor- 
mation is  but  scanty.  The  few  intimates  of  Shelley 
seem  inclined  to  go  to  their  graves  without  telling 
in  accurate  detail  the  curious  circumstances  of  his  / 
life  ;  we  are  left  to  be  content  with  vain  "prefaces  " 
and  the  circumstantial  details  of  a  remarkable  blun- 
derer. J  We  know  something,  however,  —  we  know 
enough  to  check  our  inferences  from  his  writings  : 
in  some  moods  it  is  pleasant  not  to  have  them  dis- 
turbed by  long  volumes  of  memoirs  and  anecdotes. 

One  peculiarity  of  Shelley's  writing  makes  it  nat- 
ural that  at  times  we  should  not  care  to  have,  that 
at  times  we  should  wish  for,  a  full  biography  :  no 
writer  has  left  so  clear  an  image  of  himself  in  his 
writings,  —  when  we  remember  them  as  a  whole,  we 
seem  to  want  no  more  ;  no  writer,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  left  so  many  little  allusions  which  we  should 
be  glad  to  have  explained,  which  the  patient  patri- 
arch would  not  perhaps  have  endured  that  any  one 
should  comprehend  while  he  did  not.  The  reason 
is,  that  Shelley  has  combined  the  use  of  the  two 


*The  Poetical  Works  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.    Edited  by  Mrs.  Shelley. 
1853. 

Essays,   Letters   from    Abroad,   Translations,   and   Fragments.     By  Percy 
Bysshe  Shelley.    Edited  by  Mrs.  Shelley.     1854. 

The  Life  of  Percy  Bysshe  Shelley.     By  Captain  Thomas  Medwin.     1847. 

tLord  John  Russell's  eight-volume  publication.  —  ED. 

t  Medwin.  —  ED. 

VOL.  I. -6  (81) 


82        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

great  modes  by  which  writers  leave  with  their 
readers  the  image  of  themselves.  There  is  the  art 
of  self-delineation  :  some  authors  try  in  imagination 
to  get  outside  themselves,  —  to  contemplate  their 
character  as  a  fact,  and  to  describe  it  and  the  move- 
ment of  their  own  actions  as  external  forms  and 
images.  Scarcely  any  one  has  done  this  as  often 
as  Shelley ;  there  is  hardly  one  of-  his  longer  works 
which  does  not  contain  a  finished  picture  of  himself 
in  some  point  or  under  some  circumstances.  Again, 
some  writers,  almost  or  quite  unconsciously,  by  a 
special  instinct  of  style,  give  an  idea  of  themselves. 
This  is  not  peculiar  to  literary  men  :  it  is  quite  as  re- 
markable among  men  of  action.  There  are  people 
in  the  world  who  cannot  write  the  commonest  letter 
on  the  commonest  affair  of  business  without  giving 
a  just  idea  of  themselves.  The  Duke  of  Wellington 
is  an  example  which  at  once  occurs  of  this  :  you 
may  read  a  dispatch  of  his  about  bullocks  and  horse- 
shoe nails,  and  yet  you  will  feel  an  interest, —  a  great 
interest ;  because  somehow  among  the  words  seems  to 
lurk  the  mind  of  a  great  general.  Shelley  has  this 
peculiarity  also  :  every  line  of  his  has  a  personal 
impress,  an  unconscious  inimitable  manner.  And 
the  two  modes  in  which  he  gives  an  idea  of  himself 
concur :  in  every  delineation  we  see  the  same  simple 
intense  being  ;  as  mythology  found  a  naiad  in  the 
course  of  every  limpid  stream,  so  through  each  eager 
line  our  fancy  sees  the  same  panting  image  of  sculp- 
tured purity. 

Shelley  is  probably  the  most  remarkable  instance  of 
the  pure  impulsive  character,  —  to  comprehend  which 
requires  a  little  detail.  Some  men  are  born  under  the 
law  :  their  whole  life  is  a  continued  struggle  between 
the  lower  principles  of  their  nature  and  the  higher. 
These  are  what  are  called  "men  of  principle";  each 
of  their  best  actions  is  a  distinct  choice  between  con- 
flicting motives.  One  propension  would  bear  them 
here,  another  there,  a  third  would  hold  them  still : 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  83 

into  the  midst  the  living  will  goes  forth  in  its 
power,  and  selects  whichever  it  holds  to  be  best.  The. 
habitual  supremacy  of  conscience  in  such  men  gives 
them  an  idea  that  they  only  exert  their  will  when 
they  do  right ;  when  they*  do  wrong  they  seem 
to  "let  their  nature  go,"  —they  say  that  they  are 
"hurried  away."  But  in  fact  there  is  commonly  an 
act  of  will  in  both  cases  :  only  it  is  weaker  when 
they  act  ill,  because  in  passably  good  men,  if  the 
better  principles  are  reasonably  strong,  they  conquer ; 
it  is  only  when  very  faint  that  they  are  vanquished. 
Yet  the  case  is  evidently  not  always  so  :  sometimes 
the  wrong  principle  is  of  itself  and  of  set  purpose 
definitely  chosen,  the  better  one  is  consciously  put 
down.  The  very  existence  of  divided  natures  is  a 
conflict.  This  is  no  new  description  of  human  na- 
ture :  for  eighteen  hundred  years  Christendom  has 
been  amazed  at  the  description  in  St.  Paul  of  the 
"law  of  his  members"  warring  against  the  "law  of 
his  mind  "  ;  *  expressions  most  unlike  in  language,  but 
not  dissimilar  in  meaning,  are  to  be  found  in  some 
of  the  most  familiar  passages  of  Aristotle. 

In  extreme  contrast  to  this  is  the  nature  which 
has  no  struggle  :  it  is  possible  to  conceive  a  char- 
acter in  which  but  one  impulse  is  ever  felt,  —  in 
which  the  whole  being,  as  with  a  single  breeze,  is 
carried  in  a  single  direction.  The  only  exercise  of 
the  will  in  such  a  being  is  in  aiding  and  carrying 
out  the  dictates  of  the  single  propensity  ;  and  this 
is  something.  There  are  many  of  our  powers  and 
faculties  only  in  a  subordinate  degree  under  the 
control  of  the  emotions  :  the  intellect  itself  in  many 
moments  requires  to  be  bent  to  defined  attention  by 
compulsion  of  the  will ;  no  mere  intensity  of  desire 
will  thrust  it  on  its  tasks.  But  of  what  in  most 
men  is  the  characteristic  action  of  the  will  —  namely, 
self-control  —  such  natures  are  hardly  in  want ;  an 
ultimate  case  could  be  imagined  in  which  they  would 


•Rom.  vii.  23. 


84         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

not  need  it  at  all.  They  have  no  lower  desires  to 
pull  down,  for  they  have  no  higher  ones  which  come 
into  collision  with  them;  the  very  words  "lower" 
and  "higher,"  involving  the  contemporaneous  action 
and  collision  of  two  impulses,  are  inapplicable  to 
them  :  there  is  no  strife ;  all  their  soul  impels  them 
in  a  single  line.  This  may  be  a  quality  of  the  high- 
est character ;  indeed,  in  the  highest  character  it  will 
certainly  be  found.  No  one  will  question  that  the 
whole  nature  of  the  holiest  Being  tends  to  what  is 
holy,  without  let,  struggle,  or  strife,  —  it  would  be 
impiety  to  doubt  it ;  yet  this  same  quality  may  cer- 
tainly be  found  in  a  lower  —  a  much  lower  —  mind 
than  the  highest.  A  level  may  be  of  any  elevation  ; 
the  absence  of  intestine  commotion  may  arise  from 
a  sluggish  dullness  to  eager  aspirations  :  the  one 
impulse  which  is  felt  may  be  any  impulse  whatever. 
If  the  idea  were  completely  exemplified,  one  would 
instinctively  say  that  a  being  with  so  single  a  mind 
could  hardly  belong  to  human  nature.  Temptation 
is  the  mark  of  our  life  ;  we  can  hardly  divest  our- 
selves of  the  idea  that  it  is  indivisible  from  our 
character.  As  it  was  said  of  solitude,  so  it  may 
be  said  of  the  sole  dominion  of  a  single  impulse, 
"  Whoso  is  devoted  to  it  would  seem  to  be  either 
a  beast  or  a  god."  * 

Completely  realized  on  earth  this  idea  will  never 
be ;  but  approximations  may  be  found,  and  one  of 
the  closest  of  those  approximations  is  Shelley.  We 
fancy  his  mind  placed  in  the  light  of  thought,  with 
pure  subtle  fancies  playing  to  and  fro.  On  a  sudden 
an  impulse  arises ;  it  is  alone,  and  has  nothing  to 
contend  with  :  it  cramps  the  intellect,  pushes  aside 
the  fancies,  constrains  the  nature ;  it  bolts  forward 
into  action.  Such  a  character  is  an  extreme  puzzle 


*  "  Whosoever  is  delighted  in  solitude  is  either  a  wild  beast  or  a  god." 
—  Bacou,  Essay  on  Friendship;  from  Aristotle's  "  Politica,"  Book  i. :  —  "He 
who  is  unable  to  mingle  in  society  ...  is  no  part  of  the  state,  so  that  he 
is  either  a  wild  beast  or  a  divinity." 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  85 

to  external  observers.  From  the  occasionally  of  its 
impulses  it  will  often  seem  silly ;  from  their  singu- 
larity, strange  ;  from  their  intensity,  fanatical.  It  is 
absurdest  in  the  more  trifling  matters.  There  is  a 
legend  of  Shelley,  during  an  early  visit  to  London, 
flying  along  the  street,  catching  sight  of  a  new 
microscope,  buying  it  in  a  moment  ;  pawning  it  the 
instant  afterwards  to  relieve  some  one  in  the  same 
street  in  distress.  The  trait  may  be  exaggerated, 
but  it  is  characteristic  ;  it  shows  the  sudden  irrup- 
tion of  his  impulses,  their  abrupt  force  and  curious 
purity. 

The  predominant  impulse  in  Shelley  from  a  very 
early  age  was  "  a  passion  for  reforming  mankind." 
Mr.  Newman*  has  told  us  in  his  "Letters  from  the 
East"  how  much  he  and  his  half -missionary  asso- 
ciates were  annoyed  at  being  called  "young  people 
trying  to  convert  the  world":  in  a  strange  land,  ig- 
norant of  the  language,  beside  a  recognized  religion,  in 
the  midst  of  an  immemorial  society,  the  aim,  though 
in  a  sense  theirs,  seemed  ridiculous  when  ascribed 
to  them.  Shelley  would  not  have  felt  this  at  all : 
no  society,  however  organized,  would  have  been  too 
strong  for  him  to  attack  ;  he  would  not  have  paused  ; 
the  impulse  was  upon  him ;  he  would  have  been 
ready  to  preach  that  mankind  were  to  be  "free, 
equal,  and  pure,  and  wise,"t  —  in  favor  of  "justice  and 
truth  and  time  and  the  world's  natural  sphere,"  J  — 
in  the  Ottoman  Empire,  or  to  the  Czar,  or  to  George 
III.  Such  truths  were  independent  of  time  and  place 
and  circumstance  ;  some  time  or  other,  something  or 
somebody  (his  faith  was  a  little  vague)  would  most 
certainly  intervene  to  establish  them.  It  was  this 
placid  undoubting  confidence  which  irritated  the  posi- 
tive and  skeptical  mind  of  Hazlitt :  — 

*  Francis  W.      As  the  British  Museum  has  no  copy  of  this  work,  I  can- 
not give  chapter  and  verse.  —  ED. 

t"  Revolt  of  Islam,"  Canto  vii.,  Stanza  xxxiii. 
JIbid.,  Stanza  xxxi. 


86  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

"The  author  of  the  'Prometheus  Unbound,'"  he  tells  us,  "has 
a  fire  in  his  eye,  a  fever  in  his  blood,  a  maggot  in  his  brain,  a 
hectic  flutter  in  his  speech,  which  mark  out  the  philosophic  fanatic. 
He  is  sanguine-complexioned  and  shrill-voiced.  As  is  often  observ- 
able in  the  case  of  religious  enthusiasts,  there  is  a  slenderness  of 
constitutional  stamina  which  renders  the  flesh  no  match  for  the 
spirit.  His  bending,  flexible  form  appears  to  take  no  strong  hold 
of  things,  does  not  grapple  with  the  world  about  him,  but  slides 
from  it  like  a  river,  — 

"  'And  in  its  liquid  texture  mortal  wound 
Eeceives,  no  more  than  can  the  fluid  air.'* 

The  shock  of  accident,  the  weight  of  authority,  make  no  impress- 
ion on  his  opinions,  which  retire  like  a  feather,  or  rise  from  the 
encounter  unhurt,  through  their  own  buoyancy.  He  is  clogged  by 
no  dull  system  of  realities,  no  earth-bound  feelings,  no  rooted  preju- 
dices, by  nothing  that  belongs  to  the  mighty  trunk  and  hard  husk 
of  nature  and  habit ;  but  is  drawn  up  by  irresistible  levity  to  the 
regions  of  mere  speculation  and  fancy,  to  the  sphere  of  air  and 
fire,  where  his  delighted  spirit  floats  in  '  seas  of  pearl  and  clouds 
of  amber. 't  There  is  no  caput  mortuum  of  worn-out  threadbare 
experience  to  serve  as  ballast  to  his  mind  ;  it  is  all  volatile  intel- 
lectual salt-of-tartar,  that  refuses  to  combine  its  evanescent,  inflam- 
mable essence  with  anything  solid  or  anything  lasting.  Bubbles 
are  to  him  the  only  realities  :  touch  them,  and  they  vanish.  Curi- 
osity is  the  only  proper  category  of  his  mind  ;  and  though  a  man 
in  knowledge,  he  is  a  child  in  feeling,  "f 

And  so  on  with  vituperation.  No  two  characters 
could  indeed  be  found  more  opposite  than  the  open, 
eager,  buoyant  poet,  and  the  dark,  threatening,  un- 
believing critic. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  such  a  tendency  under 
some  circumstances  might  not  have  carried  Shelley 
into  positions  most  alien  to  an  essential  benevolence. 
It  is  most  dangerous  to  be  possessed  with  an  idea : 
Dr.  Arnold  used  to  say  that  he  had  studied  the  life 


*  "  Nor  in  their  liquid  texture  mortal  wound 
Receive,  no  more  than  can  the  fluid  air." 

— "  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  vi. 

t  Probably  a  reference  to  "seas  of  milk  and  ships  of  amber,"  in  Otway's 
"Venice  Preserved,"  last  words  of  Act  v.  —  ED. 

t  Essay  "  On  Paradox  and  the  Commonplace,"  in  the  "  Table  Talk." 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  87 

of  Robespierre  with  the  greatest  personal  benefit. 
No  personal  purity  is  a  protection  against  insatiable 
zeal ;  it  almost  acts  in  the  opposite  direction,  —  the 
less  a  man  is  conscious  of  inferior  motives,  the  more 
likely  is  he  to  fancy  that  he  is  doing  God  service. 
There  is  no  difficulty  in  imagining  Shelley  cast  by 
the  accident  of  fortune  into  the  Paris  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  hurried  on  by  its  ideas,  undoubting  in  its  hopes, 
wild  with  its  excitement,  going  forth  in  the  name 
of  freedom  conquering  and  to  conquer :  and  who 
can  think  that  he  would  have  been  scrupulous  how 
he  attained  such  an  end  ?  It  was  in  him  to  haAre 
walked  towards  it  over  seas  of  blood  ;  one  could  al- 
most identify  him  with  St.  Just,  the  "fair-haired 
republican." 

On  another  and  a  more  generally  interesting  topic, 
Shelley  advanced  a  theory  which  amounts  to  a  deifi- 
cation of  impulse. 

"Love,"  he  tells  us,  "is  inevitably  consequent  upon  the  per- 
ception of  loveliness.  Love  withers  under  constraint ;  its  very 
essence  is  liberty ;  it  is  compatible  neither  with  obedience,  jealousy, 
nor  fear ;  it  is  there  most  pure,  perfect,  and  unlimited,  where  its 
votaries  live  in  confidence,  equality,  and  unreserve.  ...  A  husband 
and  wife  ought  to  continue  [only]  so  long  united  as  they  love 
each  other.  Any  law  which  should  bind  them  to  cohabitation  for 
pne  moment  after  the  decay  of  their  affection  would  be  a  most 
intolerable  tyranny,  and  the  most  unworthy  of  toleration.  How 
odious  a  usurpation  of  the  right  of  private  judgment  should  that 
law  be  considered  which  should  make  the  ties  of  friendship  in- 
dissoluble, in  spite  of  the  caprices,  the  inconstancy,  the  fallibility 
...  of  the  human  mind  !  And  by  so  much  would  the  fetters  of 
love  be  heavier  and  more  unendurable  than  those  of  friendship,  as 
love  is  more  vehement  and  capricious,  more  dependent  on  those 
delicate  peculiarities  of  imagination,  and  less  capable  of  reduction 
to  the  ostensible  merits  of  the  object." 

This  passage,  no  doubt,  is  from  an  early  and  crude 
essay,  one  of  the  notes  to  "Queen  Mab";  and  there 
are  many  indications  in  his  latter  years  that  though 
he  might  hold  in  theory  that  "constancy  has  nothing 


88  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.   CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

virtuous  in  itself,"  yet  in  practice  he  shrank  from 
breaking  a  tie  hallowed  by  years  of  fidelity  and  sym- 
pathy. But  though  his  conduct  was  doubtless  higher 
than  his  creed,  there  is  no  evidence  that  his  creed 
was  ever  changed :  the  whole  tone  of  his  works  is 
on  the  other  side;  the  "  Epipsychidion "  could  not 
have  been  written  by  a  man  who  attached  a  moral 
value  to  constancy  of  mind.  And  the  whole  doctrine 
is  most  expressive  of  his  character  :  a  quivering  sen- 
sibility endured  only  the  essence  of  the  most  refined 
love  ;  it  is  intelligible  that  one  who  bowed  in  a 
moment  to  every  desire  should  have  attached  a  kind 
of  consecration  to  the  most  pure  and  eager  of  human 
passions. 

•The  evidence  of  Shelley's  poems  confirms  this 
impression  of  him :  the  characters  which  he  deline- 
ates have  all  this  same  kind  of  pure  impulse.  The 
reforming  impulse  is  especially  felt  :  in  almost  every 
one  of  his  works  there  is  some  character^  of  whom 
all  we  know  is,  that  he  or  she  had  this  passionate 
disposition  to  reform  mankind ;  we  know  nothing 
else  about  them,  and  they  are  all  the  same.  Laon, 
in  the  "Revolt  of  Islam,"  does  not  differ  at  all 
from  Lionel,  in  "Rosalind  and  Helen";  Laon  differs 
from  Cythna,  in  the  former  poem,  only  as  male  from 
female.  Lionel  is  delineated,  though  not  with  Shel- 
ley's greatest  felicity,  in  a  single  passage  :  — 

"  Yet  through  those  dungeon  walls  there  came 

Thy  thrilling  light,  O  Liberty  ! 
And  as  the  meteor's  midnight  flame 
Startles  the  dreamer,  sunlike  truth 
Flashed  on  his  visionary  youth, 
And  filled  him,  not  with  love,  but  faith, 
And  hope,  and  courage  mute  in  death ; 
For  love  and  life  in  him  were  twins, 

Born  at  one  birth  :   in  every  other 
First  life,  then  love,  its  course  begins, 

Though  they  be  children  of  one  mother ; 
And  so  through  this  dark  world  they  fleet 
Divided,  till  in  death  they  meet : 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  89 

But  lie  loved  all  things  ever.     Then 

He  passed  amid  the  strife  of  men, 

And  stood  at  the  throne  of  armed  power 

Pleading  for  a  world  of  woe ; 
Secure  as  one  on  a  rock -built  tower 

O'er  the  wrecks  which  the  surge  trails  to  and  fro, 
'Mid  the  passions  wild  of  human-kind 

He  stood,  like  a  spirit  calming  them  : 
For,  it  was  said,  his  words  could  bind 

Like  music  the  lulled  crowd,  and  stem 
That  torrent  of  unquiet  dream 
"Which  mortals  truth  and  reason  deem, 
But  is  revenge  and  fear  and  pride. 

Joyous  he  was ;    and  hope  and  peace 
On  all  who  heard  him  did  abide, 
Raining  like  dew  from  his  sweet  talk, 
As,  where  the  evening  star  may  walk 

Along  the  brink  of  the  gloomy  seas, 
Liquid  mists  of  splendor  quiver." 

Such  is  the  description  of  all  his  reformers  in  calm ; 
in  times  of  excitement,  they  all  b.urst  forth  :  — 

"Fear  not  the  tyrants  shall  rule  forever, 

Or  the  priests  of  the  bloody  faith  : 
They  stand  on  the  brink  of  that  mighty  river 

Whose  waves  they  have  tainted  with  death  ; 
It  is  fed  from  the  depths  of  a  thousand  dells, 
Around  them  it  foams  and  rages  and  swells  : 
And  their  swords  and  their  sceptres  I  floating  see, 
Like  wrecks,  in  the  surge  of  eternity."* 

In  his  more  didactic  poems  it  is  the  same :  all  the 
world  is  evil,  and  will  be  evil,  until  some  unknown 
conqueror  shall  appear,  —  a  teacher  by  rhapsody  and 
a  conqueror  by  words,  —  who  shall  at  once  reform 
all  evil.  Mathematicians  place  great  reliance  on  the 
unknown-symbol,  great  x  ;  Shelley  did  more,  —  he  ex- 
pected it  would  take  life  and  reform  our  race.  Such 
impersonations  are  of  course  not  real  men  :  they 
are  mere  incarnations  of  a  desire.  Another  passion, 
which  no  man  has  ever  felt  more  strongly  than 


'Hosuliud  and  Ik-leu.' 


90  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Shelley,  —  the  desire  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of 
existence  (by  Hazlitt  profanely  called  "curiosity"), — 
is  depicted  in  "Alastor"  as  the  sole  passion  of  the 
only  person  in  the  poem :  — 

"By  solemn  vision  and  bright  silver  dream 
His  infancy  was  nurtured.     Every  sight 
And  sound  from  the  vast  earth  and  ambient  air 
Sent  to  his  heart  its  choicest  impulses. 
The  fountains  of  divine  philosophy 
Fled  not  his  thirsting  lips ;    and  all  of  great 
Or  good  or  lovely  which  the  sacred  past 
In  truth  or  fable  consecrates,  he  felt 
And  knew.     "When  early  youth  had  past,  he  left 
His  cold  fireside  and  alienated  home 
To  seek  strange  truths  in  undiscovered  lands. 
Many  a  wide  waste  and  tangled  wilderness 
Has  lured  his  fearless  steps ;    and  he  has  bought 
"With  his  sweet  voice  and  eyes,  from  savage  men, 
His  rest  and  food." 

He  is  cheered  on  his  way  by  a  beautiful  dream,  and 
the  search  to  find  it  again  mingles  with  the  shadowy 
quest.  It  is  remarkable  how  great  is  the  superiority 
of  the  personification  in  "Alastor,"  though  one  of 
his  earliest  writings,  over  the  reforming  abstractions 
of  his  other  works.  The  reason  is,  its  far  greater 
closeness  to  reality  :  the  one  is  a  description  of  what 
he  was,  the  other  of  what  he  desired  to  be.  Shelley 
had  nothing  of  the  magic  influence,  the  large  insight, 
the  bold  strength,  the  permeating  eloquence,  which 
fit  a  man  for  a  practical  reformer ;  but  he  had,  in 
perhaps  an  uiiequaled  and  unfortunate  measure,  the 
famine  of  the  intellect  —  the  daily  insatiable  crav- 
ing after  the  highest  truth  —  which  is  the  passion 
of  "Alastor."  So  completely  did  he  feel  it,  that  the 
introductory  lines  of  the  poem  almost  seem  to  iden- 
tify him  with  the  hero  ;  at  least  they  express  senti- 
ments which  would  have  been  exactly  dramatic  in 
his  mouth  :  — 

' '  Mother  of  this  unfathomable  world  ! 
Favor  my  solemn  song  ;  for  I  have  loved 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  91 

Thee  ever,  and  thee  only  :   I  have  watched 

Thy  shadow  and  the  darkness  of  thy  steps, 

And  my  heart  ever  gazes  on  the  depth 

Of  thy  deep  mysteries.     I  have  made  my  bed 

In  charnels  and  on  coffins,  where  black  Death 

Keeps  record  of  the  trophies  won  from  thee, 

Hoping  to  still  these  obstinate  questionings 

Of  thee  and  thine,  by  forcing  some  lone  ghost, 

Thy  messenger,  to  render  up  the  tale 

Of  what  we  are.     In  lone  and  silent  hours, 

When  night  makes  a  weird  sound  of  its  own  stillness, 

Like  an  inspired  and  desperate  alchymist 

Staking  his  very  life  on  some  dark  hope, 

Have  I  mixed  awful  talk  and  asking  looks 

"With  my  most  innocent  love,  until  strange  tears, 

Uniting  with  those  breathless  kisses,  made 

Such  magic  as  compels  the  charmed  night 

To  render  up  thy  charge ;  and  though  ne'er  yet 

Thou  hast  unveiled  thy  inmost  sanctuary, 

Enough  from  incommunicable  dream 

And  twilight  phantasms  and  deep  noonday  thought 

Has  shone  within  me,  that  serenely  now 

And  moveless  (as  a  long-forgotten  lyre 

Suspended  in  the  solitary  dome 

Of  some  mysterious  and  deserted  fane), 

I  wait  thy  breath,  Great  Parent, — that  my  strain 

May  modulate  with  murmurs  of  the  air, 

And  motions  of  the  forests  and  the  sea, 

And  voice  of  living  beings,  and  woven  hymns 

Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man." 

The   accompaniments  are  fanciful ;   but  the  essential 
passion  was  his  own. 

These  two  forms  of  abstract  personification  ex- 
haust all  which  can  be  considered  characters  among 
Shelley's  poems,  —  one  poem  excepted.  Of  course  all 
his  works  contain  "Spirits,"  "Phantasms,"  "Dream 
No.  1,"  and  "Fairy  No.  3";  but  these  do  not  belong 
to  this  world.  The  higher  air  seems  never  to  have 
been  favorable  to  the  production  of  marked  charac- 
ter :  with  almost  all  poets  the  inhabitants  of  it  are 
prone  to  a  shadowy  thinness ;  in  Shelley,  the  habit 


92         THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  frequenting  mountain  tops  has  reduced  them  to 
evanescent  mists  of  lyrical  energy.  One  poem  of 
Shelley's,  however,  has  two  beings  of  another  order : 
creations  which,  if  not  absolutely  dramatic  charac- 
ters of  the  first  class,  not  beings  whom  we  know 
better  than  we  know  ourselves,  are  nevertheless  very 
high  specimens  of  the  second,  persons  who  seem 
like  vivid  recollections  from  our  intimate  experience. 
In  this  case  the  dramatic  execution  is  so  good  that 
it  is  difficult  to  say  why  the  results  are  not  quite  of 
the  first  rank.  One  reason  of  this  is  perhaps  their 
extreme  simplicity :  our  imaginations,  warned  by  con- 
sciousness and  outward  experience  of  the  wonder- 
ful complexity  of  human  nature,  refuse  to  credit  the 
existence  of  beings  all  whose  actions  are  unmodified 
consequences  of  a  single  principle.  These  two  charac- 
ters are  Beatrice  Cenci  and  her  father  Count  Cenci. 
In  most  of  Shelley's  poems  —  he  died  under  thirty  — 
there  is  an  extreme  suspicion  of  aged  persons :  in 
actual  life  he  had  plainly  encountered  many  old  gen- 
tlemen who  had  no  belief  in  the  complete  and  philo- 
sophical reformation  of  mankind.  There  is  indeed 
an  old  hermit  in  the  "Revolt  of  Islam"  who  is 
praised  (Captain  Medwin  identifies  him  with  a  Dr. 
Some  One  who  was  kind  to  Shelley  at  Eton)  ;  but  in 
general  the  old  persons  in  his  poems  are  persons 
whose  authority  it  is  desirable  to  disprove  :  — 

"  Old  age,  with  its  gray  hair, 
And  wrinkled  legends  of  unworthy  things, 
And  icy  sneers,  is  naught."* 

The  less  its  influence,  he  evidently  believes,  the  better. 
Not  unnaturally,  therefore,  he  selected  for  a  tragedy 
a  horrible  subject  from  Italian  story,  in  which  an  old 
man,  accomplished  in  this  world's  learning,  renowned 
for  the  "cynic  sneer  of  o'er-experienced  sin,"  is  the 
principal  evil  agent.  The  character  of  Count  Cenci 
is  that  of  a  man  who  of  set  principle  does  evil  for 
evil's  sake.  He  loves  "the  sight  of  agony"  :  — 


*"  Revolt  of  Islam,"  Canto  ii.,  stanza  xxxiii. 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  93 

"All  men  delight  in  sensual  luxury ; 
All  men  enjoy  revenge ;  and  most  exult 
Over  the  tortures  they  can  never  feel, 
Flattering  their  secret  peace  with  others'  pain : 
But  I  delight  in  nothing  else." 

^  he  regrets  his  age,  it  is  from  the  failing  ability  to 
do  evil :  — 

"True,  I  was  happier  than  I  am  while  yet 
Manhood  remained  to  act  the  thing  I  thought ; 
While  lust  was  sweeter  than  revenge  :  and  now 
Invention  palls." 

It  is  this  that  makes  him  contemplate  the  violation 
of  his  daughter  :  — 

' '  There  yet  remains  a  deed  to  act, 
"Whose  horror  might  make  sharp  an  appetite 
Duller  than  mine." 

Shelley,  though  a  habitual  student  of  Plato,  —  the 
greatest  modern  writer  who  has  taken  great  pleas- 
ure in  his  writings,  —  never  seems  to  have  read  any 
treatise  of  Aristotle,  otherwise  he  would  certainly 
seem  to  have  derived  from  that  great  writer  the 
idea  of  the  a/coAaarof ;  *  yet  in  reality  the  idea  is  as 
natural  to  Shelley  as  any  man,  —  more  likely  to  occur 
to  him  than  to  most.  Children  think  that  everybody 
who  is  bad  is  very  bad  :  their  simple  eager  disposi- 
tion only  understands  the  doing  what  they  wish  to 
do ;  they  do  not  refine ;  if  they  hear  of  a  man  doing 
evil,  they  think  he  wishes  to  do  it, — that  he  has  a 
special  impulse  to  do  evil,  as  they  have  to  do  what 
they  do.  Something  like  this  was  the  case  with 
Shelley  :  his  mind,  impulsive  and  childlike,  could  not 
imagine  the  struggling  kind  of  characters, — either 
those  which  struggle  with  their  lower  nature  and 
conquer  or  those  which  struggle  and  are  vanquished, 
either  the  e-yKpar^c  or  the  dtfpar^  f  of  the  old  thinker ; 
but  he  could  comprehend  that  which  is  in  reality 

*  "Unrestrained  "  (boundless  in  sensuality), 
t  With  and  without  self-mastery. 


94  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

far  worse  than  either,  the  being  who  wishes  to  com- 
mit sin  because  it  is  sin,  who  is  as  it  were  possessed 
with  a  demon  hurrying  him  out,  hot  and  passionate, 
to  vice  and  crime.  The  innocent  child  is  whirled 
away  by  one  impulse ;  the  passionate  reformer  by 
another ;  the  essential  criminal,  if  such  a  being  be 
possible,  by  a  third  :  they  are  all  beings,  according 
to  one  division,  of  the  same  class.  An  imaginative 
mind  like  Shelley's,  belonging  to  the  second  of  these 
types,  naturally  is  prone  in  some  moods  to  embody 
itself  under  the  forms  of  the  third ;  it  is,  as  it  were, 
the  antithesis  to  itself. 

Equally  simple  is  the  other  character,  that  of  Bea- 
trice. Even  before  her  violation,  by  a  graphic  touch 
of  art,  she  is  described  as  absorbed,  or  beginning  to 
be  absorbed,  in  the  consciousness  of  her  wrongs  :  — 

"  As  I  have  said,  speak  to  me  not  of  love. 
Had  you  a  dispensation,  I  have  not ; 
Nor  will  I  leave  this  home  of  misery 
Whilst  my  poor  Bernard,  and  that  gentle  lady 
To  whoin  I  owe  life  and  these  virtuous  thoughts, 
Must  suffer  what  I  still  have  strength  to  share. 
Alas,  Orsino  !  all  the  love  that  once 
I  felt  for  you  is  turned  to  bitter  pain. 
Ours  was  a  youthful  contract,  which  you  first 
Broke  by  assuming  vows  no  pope  will  loose  : 
And  thus  I  love  you  still,  but  holily, 
Even  as  a  sister  or  a  spirit  might ; 
And  so  I  swear  a  cold  fidelity." 

After  her  violation,  her  whole  being  is  absorbed  by 
one  thought,  —  how  and  by  what  subtle  vengeance 
she  can  expiate  the  memory  of  her  shame.  These 
are  all  the  characters  in  Shelley  ;  an  impulsive  unity 
is  of  the  essence  of  them  all. 

The  same  characteristic  of  Shelley's  temperament 
produced  also  most  marked  effects  on  his  speculative 
opinions.  The  peculiarity  of  his  creed  early  brought 
him  into  opposition  to  the  world.  His  education 
seems  to  have  been  principally  directed  by  his  father, 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  95 

of  whom  the  only  description  which  has  reached  us 
is  not  favorable.  Sir  Timothy  Shelley,  according  to 
Captain  Medwin,  was  an  illiterate  country  gentleman 
of  an  extinct  race.  He  had  been  at  Oxford,  where 
he  learned  nothing;  had  made  the  "grand  tour," 
from  which  he  brought  back  "a  smattering  of  bad 
French  and  a  bad  picture  of  an  eruption  at  Vesuvius." 
He  had  the  air  of  the  "old  school,"  and  the  habit 
of  throwing  it  off  which  distinguished  that  school. 
Lord  Chesterfield  himself  was  not  easier  on  matters 
of  morality :  he  used  to  tell  his  son  that  he  would 
provide  for  natural  children  ad  infinitutn,  but  would 
never  forgive  his  making  a  mesalliance.  On  religion 
his  opinions  were  very  lax.  He  indeed  "  required 
his  servants,"  we  are  told,  "to  attend  church,"  and 
even,  on  rare  occasions,  with  superhuman  virtue, 
attended  himself ;  but  there,  as  with  others  of  that 
generation,  his  religion  ended.  He  doubtless  did  not 
feel  that  any  more  could  be  required  of  him  ;  he 
was  not  consciously  insincere,  but  he  did  not  in 
the  least  realize  the  opposition  between  the  religion 
which  he  professed  and  the  conduct  which  he  pursued. 
Such  a  person  was  not  likely  to  influence  a  morbidly 
sincere  imaginative  nature  in  favor  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  Church  of  England.  Shelley  went  from  Eton, 
where  he  had  been  singular,  to  Oxford,  where  he 
was  more  so.  He  was  a  fair  classical  scholar ;  but 
his  real  mind  was  given  to  out-of-school  knowledge. 
He  had  written  a  novel ;  he  had  studied  chemistry  ; 
when  pressed  in  argument,  he  used  to  ask,  "What 
then  does  Condorcet  say  upon  the  subject?"  This 
was  not  exactly  the  youth  for  the  University  of 
Oxford  in  the  year  1810.  A  distinguished  pupil  of 
that  University  once  observed  to  us,  "The  use  of  the 
University  of  Oxford  is,  that  no  one  can  overread 
themselves  there ;  the  appetite  for  knowledge  is 
repressed ;  a  blight  is  thrown  over  the  ingenuous 
mind,"  etc.  And  possibly  it  may  be  so  :  considering 
how  small  a  space  literary  knowledge  fills  in  the 


96  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

busy  English  world,  it  may  not  be  without  its  advan- 
tages that  any  mind  prone  to  bookish  enthusiasm 
should  be  taught  by  the  dryness  of  its  appointed 
studies,  the  want  of  sympathy  of  its  teachers,  and  a 
rough  contact  with  average  English  youth,  that  stu- 
dious enthusiasm  must  be  its  own  reward ;  that  in 
this  country  it  will  meet  with  little  other ;  that  it 
will  not  be  encouraged  in  high  places.  Such  dis- 
cipline may,  however,  be  carried  too  far :  a  very 
enthusiastic  mind  may  possibly  by  it  be  turned  in 
upon  itself ;  this  was  the  case  with  Shelley.  When 
he  first  came  up  to  Oxford,  physics  was  his  favorite 
pursuit.  On  chemistry  especially  he  used  to  be  elo- 
quent : — ''The  galvanic  battery,"  said  he,  "is  a  new 
engine.  It  has  been  used  hitherto  to  an  insignificant 
extent ;  yet  it  has  worked  wonders  already.  What 
will  not  an  extraordinary  combination  of  troughs  of 
colossal  magnitude,  a  well-arranged  system  of  hun- 
dreds of  metallic  plates,  effect  ?"  Nature,  however, 
like  the  world,  discourages  a  wild  enthusiasm.  "  His 
chemical  operations  seemed  to  an  unskillful  observer 
to  promise  nothing  but  disasters.  He  had  blown 
himself  up  at  Eton  ;  he  had  inadvertently  swallowed 
some  mineral  poison,  which  he  declared  had  seriously 
injured  his  health,  and  from  the  effects  of  which 
he  should  never  recover ;  his  hands,  his  clothes,  his 
books,  and  his  furniture  were  stained  and  covered 
by  medical  acids,"  and  so  on.  Disgusted  with  these 
and  other  failures,  he  abandoned  physics  for  meta- 
physics ;  he  rushed  headlong  into  the  form  of  phi- 
losophy then  popular.  It  is  not  likely  that  he  ever 
read  Locke,  and  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  dismay 
with  which  the  philosopher  would  have  regarded 
so  "heady  and  skittish"  a  disciple;  but  he  continu- 
ally invoked  Locke  as  an  authority,  and  was  really 
guided  by  the  French  expositions  of  him  then  pop- 
ular. Hume  of  course  was  not  without  his  influence. 
With  such  teachers  only  to  control  him,  an  excitable 
poet  rushed  in  a  moment  to  materialism,  and  thence 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  97 

to  atheism.  Deriving  any  instruction  from  the  Uni- 
versity was,  according  to  him,  absurd  :  he  wished  to 
convert  the  University.  He  issued  a  kind  of  thesis, 
stating  by  way  of  interrogatory  all  the  difficulties  of 
the  subject;  called  it  the  "Necessity  of  Atheism," 
and  sent  it  to  the  professors,  heads  of  houses,  and 
several  bishops.  The  theistic  belief  of  his  college 
was  equal  to  the  occasion.  "It  was  a  fine  spring 
morning  on  Lady  Day  in  the  year  1811,  when,"  says 
a  fellow-student,  "  I  went  to  Shelley's  rooms.  He 
was  absent ;  but  before  I  had  collected  our  books  he 
rushed  in.  He  was  terribly  agitated.  I  anxiously 
inquired  what  had  happened. —  'I  am  expelled!" 
He  then  explained  that  he  had  been  summoned  be- 
fore the  Master  and  some  of  the  fellows ;  that  as 
he  was  unable  to  deny  the  authorship  of  the  essay, 
he  had  been  expelled,  and  ordered  to  quit  the  college 
the  next  morning  at  latest.  He  had  wished  to  be 
put  on  his  trial  more  regularly,  and  stated  to  the 
Master  that  England  was  "a  free  country";  but 
without  effect,  —  he  was  obliged  to  leave  Oxford. 
His  father  was  very  angry  :  "if  he  had  broken  the 
Master's  windows,  one  could  have  understood  it ;  *' 
but  to  be  expelled  for  publishing  a  book  seemed  an 
error  incorrigible,  because  incomprehensible. 

These  details  at  once  illustrate  Shelley's  tempera- 
ment, and  enable  us  to  show  that  the  peculiarity  of 
his  opinions  arose  out  of  that  temperament.  He  was 
placed  in  circumstances  which  left  his  eager  mind 
quite  free.  Of  his  father  we  have  already  spoken  ; 
there  was  no  one  else  to  exercise  a  subduing  or  guid- 
ing influence  over  him  :  nor  would  his  mind  have  nat- 
urally been  one  extremely  easy  to  influence,  —  through 
life  he  followed  very  much  his  own  bent  and  his 
own  thoughts  ;  his  most  intimate  associates  exercised 
very  little  control  over  his  belief.  He  followed  his 
nature ;  and  that  nature  was  in  a  singular  degree 
destitute  of  certain  elements  which  most  materially 
guide  ordinary  men.  It  seems  most  likely  that  a 
VOL.  I.— 7 


98  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

person  prone  to  isolated  impulse  will  be  defective  in 
the  sensation  of  conscience :  there  is  scarcely  room 
for  it.  When,  as  in  common  conflicting  characters, 
the  whole  nature  is  daily  and  hourly  in  a  perpetual 
struggle,  the  faculty  which  decides  what  elements  in 
that  nature  are  to  have  the  supremacy  is  daily  and 
hourly  appealed  to.  Passions  are  contending ;  life 
is  a  discipline  ;  there  is  a  reference  every  moment 
to  the  directory  of  the  discipline,  the  order-book  of 
the  passions.  In  temperaments  not  exposed  to  the 
ordinary  struggle  there  is  no  such  necessity  :  their 
impulse  guides  them ;  they  have  little  temptation, 
are  scarcely  under  the  law,  have  hardly  occasion  to 
consult  the  statute  book.  In  consequence,  simple  and 
beautiful  as  such  minds  often  are,  they  are  deficient 
in  the  sensation  of  duty ;  have  no  haunting  idea  of 
right  or  wrong ;  show  an  easy  abandon  in  place  of 
a  severe  self-scrutiny.  At  first  it  might  seem  that 
such  minds  lose  little  :  they  are  exempted  from  the 
consciousness  of  a  code  to  whose  provisions  they  need 
little  access.  But  such  would  be  the  conclusion  only 
from  a  superficial  view  of  human  nature  :  the  whole 
of  our  inmost  faith  is  a  series  of  intuitions,  and 
experience  seems  to  show  that  the  intuitions  of  con- 
science are  the  beginning  of  that  series.  Childhood 
has  little  which  can  be  called  a  religion :  the  shows  of 
this  world,  the  play  of  its  lights  and  shadows,  suffice. 
It  is  in  the  collision  of  our  nature,  which  occurs  in 
youth,  that  the  first  real  sensation  of  faith  is  felt. 
Conscience  is  often  then  morbidly  acute  ;  a  flush 
passes  over  the  youthful  mind ;  the  guiding  instinct 
is  keen  and  strong,  like  the  passions  with  which  it 
contends.  At  the  first  struggle  of  our  nature  com- 
mences our  religion.  Childhood  will  utter  the  words ; 
in  early  manhood,  when  we  become  half  unwilling 
to  utter  them,  they  begin  to  have  a  meaning.  The 
result  of  history  is  similar.  The  whole  of  religion 
rests  on  a  faith  that  the  universe  is  solely  ruled  by 
an  almighty  and  all-perfect  Being  ;  this  strengthens 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  99 

with  the  moral  cultivation  and  grows  with  the  im- 
provement of  mankind.  It  is  the  assumed  axiom 
of  the  creed  of  Christendom,  and  all  that  is  really 
highest  in  our  race  may  have  the  degree  of  its  excel- 
lence tested  by  the  degree  of  the  belief  in  it ;  but 
experience  shows  that  the  belief  only  grows  very 
gradually.  We  see  at  various  times,  and  now,  vast 
outlying  nations  in  whom  the  conviction  of  morality— 
the  consciousness  of  a  law  —  is  but  weak ;  and  there 
the  belief  in  an  all-perfect  God  is  half  forgotten, 
faint,  and  meager.  It  exists  as  something  between 
a  tradition  and  a  speculation  :  but  it  does  not  come 
forth  on  the  solid  earth ;  it  has  no  place  in  the 
"business  and  bosoms"*  of  men;  it  is  thrust  out 
of  view  even  when  we  look  upwards,  by  fancied 
idols  and  dreams  of  "the  stars  in  their  courses. "f 
Consider  the  state  of  the  Jewish,  as  compared  with 
the  better  part  of  the  pagan,  world  of  old.  On  the 
one  side  we  see  civilization,  commerce,  the  arts,  a 
great  excellence  in  all  the  exterior  of  man's  life  :  a 
sort  of  morality  sound  and  sensible,  placing  the  good 
of  man  in  a  balanced  moderation  within  and  good 
looks  without,  in  a  combination  of  considerate  good 
sense  with  the  air  of  aristocratic  —  or,  as  it  was 
said,  "godlike"  —refinement.  We  see,  in  a  word, 
civilization  and  the  ethics  of  civilization  ;  the  first 
polished,  the  other  elaborated  and  perfected  :  but 
this  is  all,  —  we  do  not  see  faith.  We  see  in  some 
quarters  rather  a  horror  of  the  curiosus  deus  inter- 
fering, controlling,  watching,  never  letting  things 
alone,  disturbing  the  quiet  of  the  world  with  punish- 
ment and  the  fear  of  punishment.  The  Jewish  side 
of  the  picture  is  different.  We  see  a  people  who  have 
perhaps  an  inaptitude  for  independent  civilization, 
who  in  secular  pursuits  have  only  been  assistants 
and  attendants  on  other  nations  during  the  whole 
history  of  mankind.  These  have  no  equable,  beauti- 
ful morality  like  the  others  ;  but  instead  a  gnawing,. 

*  Bacon,  Dedication  to  Essays.  t  Judges  T.  20. 


100  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

abiding,  depressing  —  one  might  say  a  slavish  —  cere- 
monial, excessive  sense  of  law  and  duty.  This  nation 
has  faith :  by  a  link  not  logical,  but  ethical,  this 
intense,  eating,  abiding  supremacy  of  conscience  is 
connected  with  a  deep  daily  sense  of  a  watchful, 
governing,  and  jealous  God ;  and  from  the  people  of 
the  law  arises  the  gospel,  —  the  sense  of  duty,  when 
awakened,  awakens  not  only  the  religion  of  the  law, 
but  in  the  end  the  other  religious  intuitions  which 
lie  round  about  it.  The  faith  of  Christendom  has 
arisen  not  from  a  great  people,  but  from  "the  least 
of  all  people,"  —  from  the  people  whose  anxious  legal- 
ism  was  a  noted  contrast  to  the  easy,  impulsive  life 
of  pagan  nations.  In  modern  language,  conscience  is 
the  converting  intuition  ;  that  which  turns  men  from 
the  world  without  to  that  within,  —  from  the  things 
which  are  seen  to  the  realities  which  are  not  seen. 
In  a  character  like  Shelley's,  where  this  haunting, 
abiding,  oppressive  moral  feeling  is  wanting  or  de- 
fective, the  religious  belief  in  an  almighty  God  which 
springs  out  of  it  is  likely  to  be  defective  likewise. 

In  Shelley's  case  this  deficiency  was  aggravated 
by  what  may  be  called  the  "abstract"  character  of 
his  intellect.  We  have  shown  that  no  character  ex- 
cept his  own,  and  characters  most  strictly  allied  to 
his  own,  are  delineated  in  his  works.  The  tendency 
of  his  mind  was  rather  to  personify  isolated  quali- 
ties or  impulses  —  equality,  liberty,  revenge,  and  so 
on — than  to  create  out  of  separate  parts  or  passions 
the  single  conception  of  an  entire  character.  This 
is,  properly  speaking,  the  mythological  tendency  :  all 
early  nations  show  this  marked  disposition  to  con- 
ceive of  separate  forces  and  qualities  as  a  kind  of 
semi-persons ;  that  is,  not  true  actual  persons  with 
distinct  characters,  but  beings  who  guide  certain  influ- 
ences, and  of  whom  all  we  know  is,  that  they  guide 
those  influences.  Shelley  evinces  a  remarkable  tend- 
ency to  deal  with  mythology  in  this  simple  and 
elementary  form.  Other  poets  have  breathed  into 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  101 

mythology  a  modern  life ;  have  been  attracted  by 
those  parts  which  seem  to  have  a  religious  meaning, 
and  have  enlarged  that  meaning  while  studying  to 
embody  it.  With  Shelley  it  is  otherwise :  the  parts 
of  mythology  by  which  he  is  attracted  are  the  bare 
parts, — the  simple  stories  which  Dr.  Johnson  found 
so  tedious. 

"  Arethusa  arose 

From  her  couch  of  snows 
In  the  Acroceraunian  mountains : 
From  cloud  and  from  crag, 
With  many  a  jag, 
Shepherding  her  bright  fountains, 
She  leapt  down  the  rocks 
With  her  rainbow  locks 
Streaming  among  the  streams  ; 
Her  steps  paved  with  green 
The  downward  ravine 
Which  slopes  to  the  western  gleams ; 
And  gliding  and  springing, 
She  went  ever  singing, 
In  murmurs  as  soft  as  sleep  ; 

The  earth  seemed  to  love  her, 
And  heaven  smiled  above  her, 
As  she  lingered  towards  the  deep. 
Then  Alpheus  bold, 
On  his  glacier  cold, 

With  his  trident  the  mountains  strook," 
Etc.,  etc.* 

Arethusa  and  Alpheus  are  not  characters :  they  are 
only  the  spirits  of  the  fountain  and  the  stream.  When 
not  writing  on  topics  connected  with  ancient  mythol- 
ogy, Shelley  shows  the  same  bent.  "The  Cloud  "and 
the  "Skylark"  are  more  like  mythology  —  have  more 
of  the  impulse  by  which  the  populace,  if  we  may 
so  say,  of  the  external  world  was  first  fancied  into 
existence  —  than  any  other  modern  poems.  There  is 
indeed  no  habit  of  mind  more  remote  from  our  solid 
and  matter-of-fact  existence :  none  which  was  once 

*"  Arethusa." 


102  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

powerful,  of  which  the  present  traces  are  so  rare. 
In  truth,  Shelley's  imagination  achieved  all  it  could 
with  the  materials  before  it.  The  materials  for  the 
creative  faculty  must  be  provided  by  the  receptive 
faculty  :  before  a  man  can  imagine  what  will  seem 
to  be  realities,  he  must  be  familiar  with  what  are 
realities.  The  memory  of  Shelley  had  no  heaped-up 
"store  of  life,"  no  vast  accumulation  of  familiar 
characters.  His  intellect  did  not  tend  to  the  strong 
grasp  of  realities  :  its  taste  was  rather  for  the  subtle 
refining  of  theories,  the  distilling  of  exquisite  abstrac- 
tions. His  imagination  personified  what  his  under- 
standing presented  to  it ;  it  had  nothing  else  to  do. 

He  displayed  the  same  tendency  of  mind  —  some- 
times negatively  and  sometimes  positively — in  his  pro- 
fessedly religious  inquiries.  His  belief  went  through 
three  stages :  first  materialism,  then  a  sort  of  nihil- 
ism, then  a  sort  of  Platonism.  In  neither  of  them 
is  the  rule  of  the  universe  ascribed  to  a  character  : 
in  the  first  and  last  it  is  ascribed  to  animated  ab- 
stractions ;  in  the  second  there  is  no  universe  at  all. 
In  neither  of  them  is  there  any  strong  grasp  of  fact. 
The  writings  of  the  first  period  are  clearly  influenced 
by  and  modeled  on  Lucretius.  He  held  the  same  ab- 
stract theory  of  nature  :  sometimes  of  half -personified 
atoms,  moving  hither  and  thither  of  themselves ;  at 
other  times  of  a  general  pervading  spirit  of  nature, 
holding  the  same  relation  to  nature  as  a  visible 
object  that  Arethusa  the  goddess  bears  to  Arethusa 
the  stream. 

"  The  magic  car  moved  on. 

As  they  approached  their  goal 
The  coursers  seemed  to  gather  speed  ; 
The  sea  no  longer  was  distinguished  ;   earth 
Appeared  a  vast  and  shadowy  sphere  ; 
The  sun's  unclouded  orb 
Rolled  through  the  black  concave, — 
Its  rays  of  rapid  light 
Parted  around  the  chariot's  swifter  course, 
And  fell  like  ocean's  feathery  spray 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  103 

Dashed  from  the  boiling  surge 
Before  a  vessel's  prow. 

"  The  magic  car  moved  on. 

Earth's  distant  orb  appeared 
The  smallest  light  that  twinkles  in  the  heaven : 

Whilst  round  the  chariot's  way 
Innumerable  systems  rolled, 

And  countless  spheres  diffused 

An  ever-varying  glory. 
It  was  a  sight  of  wonder :  some 
Were  horned  like  the  crescent  moon; 
Some  shed  a  mild  and  silver  beam 
Like  Hesperus  o'er  the  western  sea ; 
Some  dashed  athwart  with  trains  of  flame, 
Like  worlds  to  death  and  ruin  driven ; 
Some  shone  like  suns,  and  as  the  chariot  passed. 

Eclipsed  all  other  light. 

"  Spirit  of  Nature  !   here, 
In  this  interminable  wilderness 

Of  worlds,  at  whose  immensity 
Even  soaring  fancy  staggers, — 
Here  is  thy  fitting  temple. 
Yet  not  the  lightest  leaf 
That  quivers  to  the  passing  breeze 
Is  less  instinct  with  thee  ; 
Yet  not  the  meanest  worm 
That  lurks  in  graves  and  fattens  on  the  dead 
Less  shares  thy  eternal  breath. 

Spirit  of  Nature !   thou, 
Imperishable  as  this  scene, — 

Here  is  thy  fitting  temple  !  "  * 

And  he  'copied  not  only  the  opinions  of  Lucretius, 
but  also  his  tone.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  than 
that  two  poets  of  the  first  rank  should  have  felt  a 
bounding  joy  in  the  possession  of  opinions  which  if 
true  ought,  one  would  think,  to  move  an  excitable 
nature  to  the  keenest  and  deepest  melanchol}'.  That 
this  life  is  all  ;  that  there  is  no  God,  but  only 
atoms  and  a  molding  breath,  —  are  singular  doctrines 

*"  Queen  Mab." 


104  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

to  be  accepted  with  joy  :  they  only  could  have  been 
so  accepted  by  wild  minds  bursting  with  imperious 
energy,  knowing  of  no  law,  "wreaking  thoughts 
upon  expression "  of  which  they  knew  neither  the 
meaning  nor  the  result. 

From  this  stage  Shelley's  mind  passed  to  another ; 
but  not  immediately  to  one  of  greater  belief.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  the  doctrine  of  Hume  which  was 
called  in  to  expel  the  doctrine  of  Epicurus.  His  pre- 
vious teachers  had  taught  him  that  there  was  nothing 
except  matter :  the  Scotch  skeptic  met  him  at  that 
point  with  the  question,  Is  matter  certain  ?  Hume, 
as  is  well  known,  adopted  the  negative  part  from  the 
theory  of  materialism  and  the  theory  of  immaterial- 
ism,  but  rejected  the  positive  side  of  both.  He  held, 
or  professed  to  hold,  that  there  was  no  substantial 
thing,  either  matter  or  mind,  but  only  "  sensations 
and  impressions"  flying  about  the  universe,  inhering 
in  nothing  and  going  nowhere.  These,  he  said,  were 
the  only  subjects  of  consciousness  ;  all  you  felt  was 
your  feeling,  and  all  you  thought  was  your  thought ; 
the  rest  was  only  hypothesis.  The  notion  that  there 
was  any  "  you  "  at  all  was  a  theory  generally  current 
among  mankind,  but  not,  unless  proved,  to  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  philosopher.  This  doctrine,  though  little 
agreeable  to  the  world  in  general,  has  an  excellence 
in  the  eyes  of  youthful  disputants  :  it  is  a  doctrine 
which  no  one  will  admit  and  which  no  one  can 
disprove.  Shelley  accordingly  accepted  it ;  indeed,  it 
was  a  better  description  of  his  universe  than  of  most 
people's  :  his  mind  was  filled  with  a  swarm  of  ideas, 
fancies,  thoughts,  streaming  on  without  his  volition, 
without  plan  or  order ;  he  might  be  pardoned  for 
fancying  that  they  were  all,  —  he  could  not  see  the 
outward  world  for  them,  their  giddy  passage  occupied 
him  till  he  forgot  himself.  He  has  put  down  the 
theory  in  its  barest  form  :  — 

"The  most  refined  abstractions  of  logic  conduct  to  a  view  of  life 
which,  though  startling  to  the  apprehension,  is  in  fact  that  which 


PERCY   BYSSHE  SHELLEY.       •  105 

the  habitual  sense  of  its  repeated  combinations  has  extinguished  in 
us.  It  strips,  as  it  were,  the  painted  curtain  from  this  scene  of 
things.  I  confess  that  I  am  one  of  those  who  am  [sic]  unable  tc 
refuse  my  assent  to  the  conclusions  of  those  philosophers  who 
assert  that  nothing  exists  but  as  it  is  perceived."* 

And  again  :  — 

' '  The  view  of  life  presented  by  the  most  refined  deductions  of 
the  intellectual  philosophy  is  that  of  unity.  Nothing  exists  but  as 
it  is  perceived.  The  difference  is  merely  nominal  between  those 
two  classes  of  thought  which  are  vulgarly  distinguished  by  the 
names  of  'ideas'  and  of  'external  objects.'  Pursuing  the  same 
thread  of  reasoning,  the  existence  of  distinct  individual  minds, 
similar  to  that  which  is  employed  in  now  questioning  its  own 
nature,  is  likewise  found  to  be  a  delusion.  The  words  /,  you,  they 
are  not  signs  of  any  actual  difference  subsisting  between  the  assem- 
blage of  thoughts  thus  indicated,  but  are  merely  marks  employed 
to  denote  the  different  modifications  of  the  one  mind. 

"Let  it  not  be  supposed  that  this  doctrine  conducts  to  the  mon- 
strous presumption  that  I,  the  person  who  now  write  and  think, 
am  that  one  mind.  I  am  but  a  portion  of  it.  The  words  /  and 
you  and  they  are  grammatical  devices  invented  simply  for  arrange- 
ment, and  totally  devoid  of  the  intense  and  exclusive  sense  usually 
attached  to  them.  It  is  difficult  to  find  terms  adequate  to  express 
so  subtle  a  conception  as  that  to  which  the  Intellectual  Philosophy 
has  conducted  us.  "VYe  are  on  that  verge  where  words  abandon  us ; 
and  what  wonder  if  we  grow  dizzy  to  look  down  the  dark  abyss 
of  how  little  we  know  ! "  t 

On  his  wild  nerves  these  speculations  produced  a 
great  effect :  their  thin  acuteness  excited  his  intellect, 
their  blank  results  appalled  his  imagination.  He  was 
obliged  to  pause  in  the  last  fragment  of  one  of  his 
metaphysical  papers,  "  overcome  by  thrilling  horror."  \ 
In  this  state  of  mind  he  began  to  study  Plato ; 
and  it  is  probable  that  in  the  whole  library  of  philoso- 
phy there  is  no  writer  so  suitable  to  such  a  reader. 
A  common  modern  author,  believing  in  mind  and 
matter,  he  would  have  put  aside  at  once  as  loose 
and  popular :  he  was  attracted  by  a  writer  who,  like 


*"On  Life,"  in  Essays.  t  Ibid. 

t  Annotation  on  "Speculations  in  Metaphysics."    See  Essays. 


106  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

himself,  in  some  sense  did  not  believe  in  either  ;  who 
supplied  him  with  subtle  realities  different  from  either, 
at  once  to  be  extracted  by  his  intellect  and  to  be 
glorified  by  his  imagination.  The  theory  of  Plato  that 
the  all-apparent  phenomena  were  unreal,  he  believed 
already ;  he  had  a  craving  to  believe  in  something 
noble,  beautiful,  and  difficult  to  understand  :  he  was 
ready,  therefore,  to  accept  the  rest  of  that  theory, 
and  to  believe  that  these  passing  phenomena  were 
imperfect  types  and  resemblances  —  imperfect  incar- 
nations, so  to  speak  —  of  certain  immovable,  eternal, 
archetypal  realities.  All  his  later  writings  are  colored 
by  that  theory,  though  in  some  passages  the  remains 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  senses  with  which  he  com- 
menced appear  in  odd  proximity  to  the  philosophy 
of  abstractions  with  which  he  concluded.  There  is 
perhaps  no  allusion  in  Shelley  to  the  "Phsedrus"; 
but  no  one  can  doubt  which  of  Plato's  ideas  would 
be  most  attractive  to  the  nature  we  have  described. 
The  most  valuable  part  ot  Plato  he  did  not  com- 
prehend ;  there  is  in  Shelley  none  of  that  unceasing 
reference  to  ethical  consciousness  and  ethical  religion 
which  has  for  centuries  placed  Plato  first  among  the 
preparatory  preceptors  of  Christianity.  The  general 
doctrine  is  that  — 

"  The  one  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass ; 

Heaven's  light  forever  shines,  earth's  shadows  fly  ; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  eternity, 
Until  death  tramples  it  to  fragments."* 

The   particular  worship   of  the   poet  is  paid  to   that 
"one  spirit"  whose 

"  Plastic  stress 

Sweeps  through  the  dull  dense  world,  compelling  there 
All  new  successions  to  the  forms  they  wear ; 

Torturing  th'  unwilling  dross  that  checks  its  flight 
To  its  own  likeness,  as  each  mass  may  bear ; 
And  bursting  in  its  beauty  and  its  might 
From  trees  and  beasts  and  men,  into  the  heavens'  light,  "t 


"Adonais,"  stanza  lii.  t  Ibid,  stanza  xliii. 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  107 

It  is  evident  that  not  even  in  this,  the  highest  form 
of  creed  to  which  he  ever  clearly  attained,  is  there 
any  such  distinct  conception  of  a  character  as  is  es- 
sential to  a  real  religion.  The  conception  of  God  is 
not  to  be  framed  out  of  a  single  attribute.  Shelley 
has  changed  the  "idea"  of  beauty  into  a  spirit,  and 
this  probably  for  the  purposes  of  poetry ;  he  has 
given  it  life  and  animal  motion  :  but  he  has  done 
no  more.  The  "spirit"  has  no  will  and  no  virtue; 
it  is  animated  but  unholy,  alive  but  unmoral :  it  is 
an  object  of  intense  admiration,  it  is  not  an  object 
of  worship. 

We  have  ascribed  this  quality  of  Shelley's  writ- 
ings to  an  abstract  intellect  ;  and  in  part,  no  doubt, 
correctly.  Shelley  had,  probably  by  nature,  such  an 
intellect ;  it  was  self-inclosed,  self-absorbed,  teeming 
with  singular  ideas,  remote  from  character  and  life  : 
but  so  involved  is  human  nature,  that  this  tendency 
to  abstraction,  which  we  have  spoken  of  as  aggra- 
vating the  consequences  of  his  simple  impulsive  tem- 
perament, was  itself  aggravated  by  that  temperament. 
It  is  a  received  opinion  in  metaphysics  that  the  idea 
of  personality  is  identical  with  the  idea  of  will.  A 
distinguished  French  writer  has  accurately  expressed 
this. 

"  Le  pouvoir,"  says  M.  Jouffroy,  "que  Thomme  a  de  s'emparer  de 
ses  capacites  naturelles  et  de  les  diriger  fait  de  lui  une  personne ; 
et  c'est  parceque  les  choses  n'exercent  pas  ce  pouvoir  en  elles- 
memes,  qu'elles  ne  sont  que  des  choses.  Telle  est  la  veritable  diffe- 
rence qui  distingue  les  choses  des  personnes.  Toutes  les  natures 
possibles  sont  douees  de  certaines  capacites :  mais  les  unes  ont 
recu  par-dessus  les  autres  le  privilege  de  se  saisir  d'ellesmemes  et 
de  se  gouverner,  —  celles-Ki  sont  des  personnes ;  les  autres  en  ont 
etc"  privees,  en  sorte  qu'elles  n'orit  point  de  part  a  ce  qui  se  fait  en 
elles,  —  celles-la  sont  les  choses.  Leurs  capacites  ne  s'en  develop- 
pent  pas  moins,  mais  c'est  exclusivement  selon  les  lois  auxquelles 
Dieu  les  a  soumises.  C'est  Dieu  qui  gouverne  en  elles ;  il  est  la 
personne  des  choses,  comme  1'ouvrier  est  la  personne  de  la  montre. 
Ici  la  personne  est  hors  de  Tetre ;  dans  le  sein  meme  des  choses, 
comme  dans  le  sein  de  la  montre,  la  personne  ne  se  rencontre 


108  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

pas ;  on  ne  trouve  qu'une  sdrie  de  capacites  qui  se  meuvent  aveu- 
glement,  sans  que  la  nature  qui  en  est  douee  sache  meme  ce  qu'elles 
font.  Aussi  ne  peut-on  demander  compte  aux  choses  de  ce  qui 
se  fait  en  elles ;  il  faut  s'adresser  a  Dieu,  comme  on  s'adresse  a 
1'ouvrier  et  non  a  la  niontre  quand  la  montre  va  mal. "  * 

And  if  this  theory  be  true,  —  and  doubtless  it  is  an 
approximation  to  the  truth, — it  is  evident  that  a 
mind  ordinarily  moved  by  simple  impulse  will  have 
little  distinct  consciousness  of  personality.  While 
thrust  forward  by  such  impulse,  it  is  a  mere  instru- 
ment :  outward  things  set  it  in  motion  ;  it  goes  where 
they  bid,  it  exerts  no  will  upon  them ;  it  is,  to  speak 
expressively,  a  mere  conducting  thing.  When  such 
a  mind  is  free  from  such  impulse,  there  is  even  less 
will :  thoughts,  feelings,  ideas,  emotions,  pass  before 
it  in  a  sort  of  dream ;  for  the  time  it  is  a  mere 
perceiving  thing.  In  neither  case  is  there  a  trace 
of  voluntary  character.  If  we  want  a  reason  for 
anything,  "il  faut  s'adresser  a  Dieu." 

Shelley's  political  opinions  were  likewise  the  effer- 
vescence of  his  peculiar  nature.  The  love  of  liberty 
is  peculiarly  natural  to  the  simple  impulsive  mind. 
It  feels  irritated  at  the  idea  of  a  law  :  it  fancies  it 
does  not  need  it ;  it  really  needs  it  less  than  other 


*  "  The  power  a  man  has  of  grasping  his  faculties  and  controlling  them 
makes  him  a  person;  and  it  is  because  things  do  not  exercise  this  power  on 
themselves  that  they  are  only  things.  Such  is  the  true  difference  which  dis- 
tinguishes things  from  persons.  All  possible  natures  are  endowed  with  cer- 
tain capacities :  but  one  kind  have  received  above  the  others  the  privilege 
of  seizing  and  governing  themselves, — these  are  persons;  the  others  have 
been  deprived  of  it,  so  that  they  are  no  part  of  what  is  done  to  them, — 
these  are  things.  Their  capacities  do  not  develop  in  the  least,  but  follow 
solely  the  laws  to  which  God  has  subjected  them.  It  is  God  who  governs 
in  them ;  he  is  the  person  of  things,  as  the  mechanic  is  the  person  of  the 
watch.  Here  the  person  is  outside  the  being :  in  the  very  bosom  of  things, 
as  in  the  bosom  of  the  watch,  no  person  is  found ;  one  finds  only  a  series 
of  capacities  which  move  blindly,  without  the  nature  they  are  endowed  with 
knowing  itself  what  they  are  doing.  Therefore,  we  cannot  demand  of 
things  an  account  of  what  goes  on  among  them  ;  we  must  apply  to  God, 
as  we  apply  to  the  mechanic  and  not  the  watch  when  the  watch  goes 
wrong."  (From  "  Des  Facultes  de  TAme  Humaine.") 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  109 

men.*  Government  seems  absurd,  society  an  incu- 
bus. It  has  hardly  patience  to  estimate  particular 
institutions :  it  wants  to  begin  again,  —  to  make  a 
tabula  rasa  of  all  which  men  have  created  or  devised ; 
for  they»  seem  to  have  been  constructed  on  a  false 
system,  for  an  object  it  does  not  understand.  On  this 
tabula  rasa  Shelley's  abstract  imagination  proceeded 
to  set  up  arbitrary  monstrosities  of  "equality"  and 
"love,"  which  never  will  be  realized  among  the 
children  of  men. 

Such  a  mind  is  clearly  driven  to  self-delineation. 
Nature,  no  doubt,  in  some  sense  remains  to  it :  a 
dreamy  mind  —  a  mind  occupied  intensely  with  its 
own  thoughts  —  will  often  have  a  peculiarly  intense 
apprehension  of  anything  which  by  the  hard  collision 
of  the  world  it  has  been  forced  to  observe.  The  scene 
stands  out  alone  in  the  memory,  is  a  refreshment 
from  hot  thoughts,  grows  with  the  distance  of  years. 
A  mind  like  Shelley's,  deeply  susceptible  to  all  things 
beautiful,  has  many  pictures  and  images  shining  in 
its  recollection  which  it  recurs  to,  and  which  it  is 
ever  striving  to  delineate.  Indeed,  in  such  minds  it 
is  rather  the  picture  in  their  mind  which  they  de- 
scribe than  the  original  object;  the  "ideation,"  as 
some  harsh  metaphysicians  call  it,  rather  than  the 
reality.  A  certain  dream-light  is  diffused  over  it ;  a 
wavering  touch,  as  of  interfering  fancy  or  fading 
recollection.  The  landscape  has  not  the  hues  of  the 
real  world ;  it  is  modified  in  the  camera  obscura  of 
the  self -inclosed  intelligence.  Nor  can  such  a  mind 
long  endure  the  cold  process  of  external  delineation  : 
its  own  hot  thoughts  rush  in ;  its  favorite  topic  is 
itself  and  them.  Shelley,  indeed,  as  we  observed  be- 
fore, carries  this  to  an  extent  which  no  poet  probably 
ever  equaled :  he  described  not  only  his  character 
but  his  circumstances.  We  know  that  this  is  so  in 
a  large  number  of  passages  ;  if  his  poems  were  com- 
mented on  by  some  one  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  events  of  his  life,  we  should  doubtless  find  that 

*A  slip  for  "minds."  —  ED. 


110        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

it  was  so  in  many  more.  On  one  strange  and  pain- 
ful scene  his  fancy  was  continually  dwelling.  In  a 
gentle  moment  we  have  a  dirge  :  — 

"The  warm  sun  is  failing,  the  bleak  wind  is  wailing, 
The  bare  boughs  are  sighing,  the  pale  flowers  are  dying, 

And  the  year 
On  the  earth  her  death-bed,  in  a  shroud  of  leaves,  dead 

Is  lying. 

Come,  months,  come  away, 
From  November  to  May, 
In  your  saddest  array ; 
Follow  the  bier 
Of  the  dead  cold  year, 
And  like  dim  shadows  watch  by  her  sepulchre. 

"  The  chill  rain  is  falling,  the  nipt  worm  is  crawling, 
The  rivers  are  swelling,  the  thunder  is  knelling 

For  the  year ; 
The  blithe  swallows  are  flown,  and  the  lizards  each  gone 

To  his  dwelling. 
Come,  months,  come  away ; 
Put  on  white,  black,  and  gray; 
Let  your  light  sisters  play— 
Ye,  follow  the  bier 
Of  the  dead  cold  year, 
And  make  her  grave  green  with  tear  on  tear."* 

In  a  frenzied  mood  he  breaks  forth  into  wildness  :  — 

"She  is  still,  she  is  cold 

On  the  bridal  couch  ; 
One  step  to  the  white  death-bed, 

And  one  to  the  bier, 

And  one  to  the  charnel, — and  one,  oh,  where? 
The  dark  arrow  fled 
In  the  noon. 

"Ere  the  sun  through  heaven  once  more  has  rolled, 
The  rats  in  her  heart 
Will  have  made  their  nest, 
And  the  worms  be  alive  in  her  golden  hair ; 
"While  the  spirit  that  guides  the  sun 
Sits  throned  in  his  flaming  chair, 
She  shall  sleep,  "t 


*"  Autumn."  t  Dirge  at  close  of  "Ginevra." 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  Ill 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  and  a  hundred  other 
similar  passages  allude  to  the  death  of  his  first  wife ; 
as  melancholy  a  story  as  ever  shivered  the  nerves 
of  an  excitable  being.  The  facts  are  hardly  known 
to  us,  but  they  are  something  like  these  :  — 

In  very  early  youth  Shelley  had  formed  a  half- 
fanciful  attachment  to  a  cousin,  a  Miss  Harriet  Grove, 
who  is  said  to  have  been  attractive,  and  to  whom, 
certainly,  his  fancy  often  went  back  in  later  and 
distant  years.  How  deep  the  feeling  was  on  either 
side  we  do  not  know.  She  seems  to  have  taken  an 
interest  in  the  hot  singular  dreams  which  occupied 
his  mind  except  only  where  her  image  might  intrude, 
from  which  one  might  conjecture  that  she  took  un- 
usual interest  in  him  ;  she  even  wrote  some  chapters, 
or  parts  of  some,  in  one  of  his  boyish  novels :  and 
her  parents  doubtless  thought  "The  Rosicrucian " 
could  be  endured,  as  Shelley  was  the  heir  to  land 
and  a  baronetcy.  His  expulsion  from  Oxford  altered 
all  this.  Probably  he  had  always  among  his  friends 
been  thought  a  "singular  young  man,"  and  they 
had  waited  in  perplexity  to  see  if  the  odd  ness  would 
turn  to  unusual  good  or  unusual  evil ;  his  atheistic 
treatise  and  its  results  seemed  to  show  clearly  the 
latter,  and  all  communication  with  Miss  Grove  was 
instantly  forbidden  him.  What  she  felt  on  the  sub- 
ject is  not  told  us ;  probably  some  theistic  and  un- 
dreaming lover  intervened,  for  she  married  in  a  short 
time.  The  despair  of  an  excitable  poet  at  being 
deprived  of  his  mistress  at  the  same  moment  that  he 
was  abandoned  by  his  family,  and  in  a  measure  by 
society,  may  be  fancied,  though  it  cannot  be  known. 
Captain  Medwin  observes  :  — 

"Shelley,  on  this  trying  occasion,  had  the  courage  to  live,  in 
order  that  he  might  labor  for  one  great  object,  —  the  advancement 
of  the  human  race  and  the  amelioration  of  society ;  and  strength- 
ened himself  in  a  resolution  to  devote  his  energies  to  this  ultimate 
end,  being  prepared  to  endure  every  obloquy,  to  make  every 
sacrifice  for  its  accomplishment ;  and  would,"  such  is  the  Captain's 
English,  "  if  necessary,  have  died  in  the  cause." 


112  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO/S   BAGEHOT. 

It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  disappointed  love 
took  solely  the  very  unusual  form  of  philanthropy. 
By  chance,  whether  with  or  without  leave  does  not 
appear,  he  went  to  see  his  second  sister,  who  was  at 
school  at  a  place  called  Balhani  Hill,  near  London  ; 
and  while  walking  in  the  garden  with  her,  "a  Miss 
Westbrook  passed  them."  She  was  a  "handsome 
blonde  young  lady,  nearly  sixteen "  ;  and  Shelley 
was  much  struck.  He  found  out  that  her  name 
was  Harriett,  —  as  he,  after  his  marriage,  anxiously 
expresses  it,  with  two  t's,  "Harriett";  and  he  fell  in 
love  at  once.  She  had  the  name  of  his  first  love ; 
"fairer,  though  yet  the  same."  After  his  manner, 
he  wrote  to  her  immediately.  He  was  in  the  habit 
of  doing  this  to  people  who  interested  him,  either 
in  his  own  or  under  an  assumed  name  ;  and  once, 
Captain  Medwin  says,  carried  on  a  long  correspond- 
ence with  Mrs.  Hemans,  then  Miss  Browne,  under  his 
(the  Captain's)  name,  but  which  he,  the  deponent,  was 
not  permitted  to  peruse.  In  Miss  Westbrook's  case 
the  correspondence  had  a  more  serious  consequence. 
Of  her  character  we  can  only  guess  a  little.  She 
was,  we  think,  an  ordinary  blooming  young  lady  of 
sixteen.  Shelley  was  an  extraordinary  young  man 
of  nineteen,  rather  handsome,  very  animated,  and 
expressing  his  admiration  a  little  intensely.  He 
was  doubtless  much  the  most  aristocratic  person  she 
had  ever  spoken  to ;  for  her  father  was  a  retired 
innkeeper,  and  Shelley  had  always  the  air  of  a  man 
of  birth.  There  is  a  vision,  too,  of  an  elder  sister, 
who  made  "Harriett  dear"  very  uncomfortable.  On 
the  whole,  the  result  may  be  guessed.  At  the  end 
of  August,  1811, — we  do  not  know  the  precise  day, — 
they  were  married  at  Gretna  Green.  Jests  may  be 
made  on  it ;  but  it  was  no  laughing  matter  in  the 
life  of  the  wife  or  the  husband.  Of  the  lady's  dis- 
position and  mind  we  know  nothing,  except  from 
Shelley,  —  a  medium  which  must  under  the  circum- 
stances be  thought  a  distorting  one.  We  should 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  113 

conclude  that  she  was  capable  of  making  many 
people  happy,  though  not  of  making  Shelley  happy. 
There  is  an  ordinance  of  nature  at  which  men  of  gen- 
ius are  perpetually  fretting,  but  which  does  more  good 
than  many  laws  of  the  universe  which  they  praise  : 
it  is,  that  ordinary  women  ordinarily  prefer  ordinary 
men.  ''Genius,"  as  Hazlitt  would  have  said,  "puts 
them  out : "  *  it  is  so  strange  ;  it  does  not  come  into 
the  room  as  usual;  it  says  "such  things";  once  it 
forgot  to  brush  its  hair.  The  common  female  mind 
prefers  usual  tastes,  settled  manners,  customary  con- 
versation, defined  and  practical  pursuits.  And  it  is  a 
great  good  that  it  should  be  so ;  nature  has  no  wiser 
instinct.  The  average  woman  suits  the  average  man ; 
good  health,  easy  cheerfulness,  common  charms  suffice. 
If  Miss  Westbrook  had  married  an  every-day  person,  — 
a  gentleman,  suppose,  in  the  tallow  line,  —  she  would 
have  been  happy,  and  have  made  him  happy :  her 
mind  could  have  understood  his  life,  her  society  would 
have  been  a  gentle  relief  from  unodoriferous  pursuits. 
She  had  nothing  in  common  with  Shelley:  his  mind 
was  full  of  eager  thoughts,  wild  dreams,  singular  aspi- 
rations ;  the  most  delicate  tact  would  probably  have 
often  failed,  the  nicest  sensibility  would  have  been 
jarred,  affection  would  have  erred,  in  dealing  with 
such  a  being;  a  very  peculiar  character  was  required 
to  enter  into  such  a  rare  union  of  curious  qualities. 
Some  eccentric  men  of  genius  have  indeed  felt,  in 
the  habitual  tact  and  serene  nothingness  of  ordinary 
women,  a  kind  of  trust  and  calm ;  they  have  admired 
an  instinct  of  the  world  which  they  had  not,  a  repose 
of  mind  they  could  not  share  :  but  this  is  commonly 
in  later  years.  A  boy  of  twenty  thinks  he  knows  the 
world  ;  he  is  too  proud  and  happy  in  his  own  eager 
and  shifting  thoughts  to  wish  to  contrast  them  with 
repose.  The  commonplaceness  of  life  goads  him, 

*"0n  the  Disadvantages  of  Intellectual  Superiority,"  in  the  "Table 
Talk":  —  "I  do  not  think  great  intellectual  attainments  are  any  recommend- 
ation to  the  women.  They  puzzle  them,"  etc. 

VOL.  I.— 8 


114  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

placid  society  irritates  him ;  bread  is  an  incumbrance, 
upholstery  tedious  :  he  craves  excitement ;  he  wishes 
to  reform  mankind ;  you  cannot  convince  him  it  is 
right  to  sew,  in  a  world  so  full  of  sorrow  and  evil. 
Shelley  was  in  this  state;  he  hurried  to  and  fro  over 
England,  pursuing  theories  and  absorbed  in  plans. 
He  was  deep  in  metaphysics ;  had  subtle  disproofs  of 
all  religion ;  wrote  several  poems,  which  would  have 
been  a  puzzle  to  a  very  clever  young  lady.  There 
were  pecuniary  difficulties  besides :  neither  of  the 
families  had  approved  of  the  match,  and  neither  were 
inclined  to  support  the  household.  Altogether,  no 
one  can  be  surprised  that  in  less  than  three  years 
the  hasty  union  ended  in  a  "separation  by  mutual 
consent";  the  wonder  is,  that  it  lasted  so  long. — 
What  her  conduct  was  after  the  separation,  is  not 
very  clear:  there  were  "reports"  about  her  at  Bath, 
—  perhaps  a  loquacious  place.  She  was  not  twenty, 
probably  handsome,  and  not  improbably  giddy  :  being 
quite  without  evidence,  we  cannot  judge  what  was 
rumor  and  what  was  truth.*  Shelley  has  not  left  us 
in  similar  doubt.  After  a  year  or  two  he  traveled 
abroad  with  Mary,  afterwards  the  second  Mrs.  Shelley, 
the  daughter  of  Mary  Wollstonecraft  and  William 
Godwin,  —  names  most  celebrated  in  those  times,  and 
even  now  known  for  their  anti-matrimonial  specu- 
lations. Of  their  "six-weeks'  tour"  abroad,  in  the 
year  1816,  a  record  remains,  and  should  be  read  by 
any  persons  who  wish  to  learn  what  traveling  was 
in  its  infancy.  It  was  the  year  when  the  Continent 
was  first  thrown  open  to  English  travelers ;  and  few, 
probably,  adopted  such  singular  means  of  locomo- 
tion as  Shelley  and  his  companions.  First  they  tried 
walking,  and  had  a  very  small  ass  to  carry  their 
portmanteau;  then  they  tried  a  mule;  then  a  fiacre, 
which  drove  away  from  them ;  afterwards  they  came 
to  a  raft.  It  was  not,  however,  an  unamusing  journey. 


*  The  evidence  is  now  accessible.  She  was  a  far  better  intellectual  mate 
for  Shelley  than  here  implied,  and  his  desertion  of  her  weights  him  with 
much  of  the  responsibility  for  her  fall.  —  ED. 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  115 

At  an  ugly  and  out-of-the-way  chateau  near  Brunnen 
Shelley  began  a  novel,  to  be  called  "The  Assassins," 
which  he  never  finished, — probably  never  continued 
after  his  return ;  but  which  still  remains,  and  is  one 
of  the  most  curious  and  characteristic  specimens  of 
his  prose  style.  It  was  a  refreshing  intellectual  tour; 
one  of  the  most  pleasant  rambles  of  his  life.  On  his 
return  he  was  met  by  painful  intelligence  :  his  wife 
had  destroyed  herself.  Of  her  state  of  mind  we  have 
again  110  evidence.  She  is  said  to  have  been  deeply 
affected  by  the  '-reports"  to  which  we  have  alluded; 
but  whatever  it  was,  Shelley  felt  himself  greatly  to 
blame.  He  had  been  instrumental  in  first  dividing 
her  from  her  family ;  had  connected  himself  with  her 
in  a  wild  contract,  from  which  neither  could  ever  be 
set  free :  if  he  had  not  crossed  her  path,  she  might 
have  been  happy  in  her  own  way  and  in  her  own 
sphere.  All  this  preyed  upon  his  mind,  and  it  is  said 
he  became  mad  ;  and  whether  or  not  his  horror  and 
pain  went  the  length  of  actual  frenzy,  they  doubtless 
approached  that  border-line  of  suffering  excitement 
which  divides  the  most  melancholy  form  of  sanity 
from  the  most  melancholy  forfn  of  insanity.  In  sev- 
eral poems  he  seems  to  delineate  himself  in  the  guise 

of  a  maniac  :  — 

"'Of  his  sad  history 

I  know  but  this,1  said  Maddalo :  'he  came 
To  Venice  a  dejected  man,  and  fame 
Said  he  was  wealthy,  or  he  had  been  so.  . 

Some  thought  the  loss  of  fortune  wrought  him  woe ; 
But  he  was  ever  talking  in  such  sort 
As  you  do,  —  but  more  sadly:  he  seemed  hurt, 
Even  as  a  man  with  his  peculiar  wrong, 
To  hear  but  of  the  oppression  of  the  strong, 
Or  those  absurd  deceits  (I  think  with  you 
In  some  respects,  you  know)  which  carry  through 
The  excellent  impostors  of  this  earth 
When  they  outface  detection.     He  had  worth, 
Poor  fellow  !  but  a  humorist  in  his  way.' 

'Alas,  what  drove  him  mad?1 

'  I  cannot  say  : 


116  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

A  lady  came  with  him  from  France;  and  when 

She  left  him  and  returned,  he  wandered  then 

About  yon  lonely  isles  of  desert  sand 

Till  he  grew  wild.     He  had  no  cash  nor  land 

Remaining,  —  the  police  had  brought  him  here ; 

Some  fancy  took  him,  and  he  would  not  bear 

Removal :  so  I  fitted  up  for  him 

Those  rooms  beside  the  sea,  to  please  his  whim; 

And  sent  him  busts  and  books  and  urns  for  flowers, 

Which  had  adorned  his  life  in  happier  hours, 

And  instruments  of  music.     You  may  guess 

A  stranger  could  do  little  more  or  less 

For  one  so  gentle  and  unfortunate ; 

And  those  are  his  sweet  strains,  which  charm  the  weight 

From  madman's  chains,  and  make  this  hell  appear 

A  heaven  of  sacred  silence,  hushed  to  hear.' 

'Nay,  this  was  kind  of  you,  —  he  had  no  claim, 
As  the  world  says.' 

'  None  but  the  very  same 
"Which  I  on  all  mankind,  were  I,  as  he, 
Fallen  to  such  deep  reverse.     His  melody 
Is  interrupted  now :  we  hear  the  din 
Of  madmen,  shriek  on  shriek,  again  begin; 
Let  us  now  visit  him :  after  this  strain 
He  ever  communes  with  himself  again, 
And  sees  and  hears  not  any.' 

Having  said 

These  words,  we  called  the  keeper,  and  he  led 
To  an  apartment  opening  on  the  sea : 
There  the  poor  wretch  was  sitting  mournfully 
Near  a  piano,  his  pale  fingers  twined 
One  with  the  other;  and  the  ooze  and  wind 
Rushed  through  an  open  casement,  and  did  sway 
His  hair,  and  starred  it  with  the  brackish  spray ; 
His  head  was  leaning  on  a  music-book, 
And  he  was  muttering ;  and  his  lean  limbs  shook ; 
His  lips  were  pressed  against  a  folded  leaf, 
In  hue  too  beautiful  for  health,  and  grief 
Smiled  in  their  motions  as  they  lay  apart, 
As  one  who  wrought  from  his  own  fervid  heart 
The  eloquence  of  passion :  soon  he  raised 
His  sad  meek  face,  and  eyes  lustrous  and  glazed, 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  117 

And  spoke,  —  sometimes  as  one  who  wrote,  and  thought 

His  words  might  move  some  heart  that  heeded  not 

If  sent  to  distant  lands ;  and  then  as  one 

Reproaching  deeds  never  to  be  undone, 

"With  wondering  self -compassion ;  then  his  speech 

Was  lost  in  grief,  and  then  his  words  came  each 

Unmodulated  and  expressionless, — 

But  that  from  one  jarred  accent  you  might  guess 

It  was  despair  made  them  so  uniform  : 

And  all  the  while  the  loud  and  gusty  storm 

Hissed  through  the  window,  and  we  stood  behind, 

Stealing  his  accents  from  the  envious  wind, 

Unseen.     I  yet  remember  what  he  said 

Distinctly,  such  impression  his  words  made."* 

And  casual  illustrations  —  unconscious  metaphors, 
showing  a  terrible  familiarity  —  are  borrowed  from 
insanity  in  his  subsequent  works. 

This  strange  story  is  in  various  ways  deeply  illus- 
trative of  his  character.  It  shows  how  the  impulsive 
temperament,  not  definitely  intending  evil,  is  hurried 
forward,  so  to  say,  over  actions  and  crimes  which 
would  seem  to  indicate  deep  depravity,  —  which  would 
do  so  in  ordinary  human  nature,  but  which  do  not 
indicate  in  it  anything  like  the  same  degree  of  guilt. 
Driven  by  singular  passion  across  a  tainted  region,  it 
retains  no  taint ;  on  a  sudden  it  passes  through  evil, 
but  preserves  its  purity.  So  curious  is  this  character, 
that  a  record  of  its  actions  may  read  like  a  libel  on 
its  life. 

To  some  the  story  may  also  suggest  whether  Shel- 
ley's nature  was  one  of  those  most  adapted  for  love 
in  its  highest  form.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that 
he  loved  with  a  great  intensity ;  yet  it  was  with 
a  certain  narrowness,  and  therefore  a  certain  fitful- 
ness.  Possibly  a  somewhat  wider  nature,  taking  hold 
of  other  characters  at  more  points,  —  fascinated  as 
intensely  but  more  variously,  stirred  as  deeply  but 
through  more  complicated  emotions,  —  is  requisite  for 

*"  Julian  and  Maddalo." 


118  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

the  highest  and  most  lasting  feeling;  passion,  to  b6 
enduring,  must  be  many-sided.  Eager  and  narrow 
emotions  urge  like  the  gadfly  of  the  poet,  but  they 
pass  away;  they  are  single;  there  is  nothing  to  re- 
vive them.  Various  as  human  nature  must  be  the 
passion  which  absorbs  that  nature  into  itself.  Shel- 
ley's mode  of  delineating  women  has  a  corresponding 
peculiarity :  they  are  well  described,  but  they  are 
described  under  only  one  aspect.  Every  one  of  his 
poems,  almost,  has  a  lady  whose  arms  are  white, 
whose  mind  is  sympathizing,  and  whose  soul  is  beau- 
tiful. She  has  many  names,  —  Cythna,  Asia,  Emily;* 
but  these  are  only  external  disguises ;  she  is  indubi- 
tably the  same  person,  for  her  character  never  varies. 
No  character  can  be  simpler :  she  is  described  as  the 
ideal  object  of  love  in  its  most  simple  and  elemental 
form ;  the  pure  object  of  the  essential  passion.  She 
is  a  being  to  be  loved"  in  a  single  moment,  with  eager 
eyes  and  gasping  breath ;  but  you  feel  that  in  that 
moment  you  have  seen  the  whole,  —  there  is  nothing 
to  come  to  afterwards.  The  fascination  is  intense,  but 
uniform ;  there  is  not  the  ever-varying  grace,  the 
ever-changing  expression  of  the  unchanging  charm, 
that  alone  can  attract  for  all  time  the  shifting  moods 
of  a  various  and  mutable  nature. 

The  works  of  Shelley  lie  in  a  confused  state,  like 
the  disjecta  membra  \  of  the  poet  of  our  boyhood ; 
they  are  in  the  strictest  sense  "remains."  It  is  ab- 
surd to  expect  from  a  man  who  died  at  thirty  a  long 
work  of  perfected  excellence ;  all  which  at  so  early 
an  age  can  be  expected  are  fine  fragments,  casual  ex- 
pressions of  single  inspirations.  Of  these  Shelley  has 
written  some  that  are  nearly,  and  one  or  two  perhaps 
that  are  quite,  perfect ;  but  he  has  not  done  more. 
It  would  have  been  better  if  he  had  not  attempted 
so  much.  He  would  have  done  well  to  heed  Goethe's 
caution  to  Eckermann  :  — 


*  "Revolt  of  Islam,"  "Prometheus  Unbound,"  " Epipsychidion." 
t"  Scattered  limbs." 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  119 

"Beware  of  attempting  a  large  work.  ...  If  you  have  a  great 
work  in  your  head,  nothing  else  thrives  near  it,  all  other  thoughts 
are  repelled,  and  the  pleasantness  of  life  itself  is  for  the  time  lost. 
What  exertion  and  expenditure  of  mental  force  are  required  to 
arrange  and  round  off  a  great  whole  ;  and  then  what  powers,  and 
what  a  tranquil  undisturbed  situation  in  life,  to  express  it  with  the 
proper  fluency  !  If  you  have  erred  as  to  the  whole,  all  your  toil 
is  lost ;  and  further,  if.  in  treating  so  extensive  a  subject,  you  are 
not  perfectly  master  of  your  material  in  the  details,  the  whole  will 
be  defective,  and  censure  will  be  incurred."* 

Shelley  did  not  know  this.  He  was  ever  laboring  at 
long  poems,  but  he  has  scarcely  left  one  which  as  a 
whole  is  worthy  of  him ;  you  can  point  to  none  and 
say,  This  is  Shelley.  Even  had  he  lived  to  an  age 
of  riper  capacity,  it  may  be  doubted  if  a  being  so 
discontinuous,  so  easily  hurried  to  and  fro,  would 
have  possessed  the  settled,  undeviating  self-devotion 
that  are  necessary  to  a  long  and  perfect  composition ; 
he  had  not,  like  Goethe,  the  cool  shrewdness  to  watch 
for  inspiration. 

His  success,  as  we  have  said,  is  in  fragments ;  and 
the  best  of  those  fragments  are  lyrical.  The  very 
same  isolation  and  suddenness  of  impulse  which  ren- 
dered him  unfit  for  the  composition  of  great  works, 
rendered  him  peculiarly  fit  to  pour  forth  on  a  sudden 
the  intense  essence  of  peculiar  feeling  "in  profuse 
strains  of  unpremeditated  art."  Lord  Macaulay  has 
said  that  the  words  "bard"  and  "inspiration,"  gen- 
erally so  meaningless  when  applied  to  modern  poets, 
have  a  meaning  when  applied  to  Shelley,  f  An  idea, 
an  emotion  grew  upon  his  brain;  his  breast  heaved, 
his  frame  shook,  his  nerves  quivered  with  the  "har- 
monious madness"  of  imaginative  concentration. 

"Poetry,"  he  himself  tells  us,  "is  not  like  reasoning,  a  power 
to  be  exerted  according  to  the  determination  of  the  will.  A  man 
cannot  say,  '  I  will  compose  poetry.'  The  greatest  poet  even  cannot 


*  Conversations  with  Eckermann  and  Soret ;  Oxenford's  translation.     At 
Jena,  Sept.  18,  1823. 

t  Essay  on  Southey's  edition  of  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress." 


120  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

say  it:  for  the  mind  in  creation  is  as  a  fading  coal,  which  some 
invisible  influence,  like  an  inconstant  wind,  awakens  to  transitory 
brightness ;  this  power  arises  from  within,  like  the  color  of  a  flower 
which  fades  and  changes  as  it  is  developed,  and  the  conscious  por- 
tions of  our  nature  are  unprophetic  either  of  its  approach  or  its 
departure.  .  .  .  Poetry  is  the  record  of  the  best  and  happiest  mo- 
ments of  the  happiest  and  best  minds.  We  are  aware  of  evanes- 
cent visitations  of  thought  and  feeling,  sometimes  associated  with 
place  or  person,  sometimes  regarding  our  own  mind  alone,  and 
always  arising  unforeseen  and  departing  unbidden,  but  elevating 
and  delightful  beyond  all  expression ;  so  that  even  in  the  desire 
and  the  regret  they  leave,  there  cannot  but  be  pleasure,  participat- 
ing as  it  does  in  the  nature  of  its  object.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the 
interpenetration  of  a  diviner  nature  through  our  own;  but  its  foot- 
steps are  like  those  of  a  wind  over  the  sea,  which  the  morning  calm 
erases,  and  whose  traces  remain  only,  as  on  the  wrinkled  sand 
which  paves  it."* 

In  verse,  Shelley  has  compared  the  skylark  to  a 
poet;  we  may  turn  back  the  description  on  his  own 
art  and  his  own  mind :  — 

"Keen  as  are  the  arrows 
Of  that  silver  sphere 
Whose  intense  lamp  narrows 

In  the  white  dawn  clear, 
Until  we  hardly  see,  we  feel  that  it  is  there. 

"All  the  earth  and  air 

With  thy  voice  is  loud ; 
As,  when  night  is  bare, 

From  one  lonely  cloud 
The  moon  rains  out  her  beams,  and  heaven  is  overflowed. 

"What  thou  art  we  know  not; 

What  is  most  like  thee  ? 
From  rainbow  clouds  there  flow  not 

Drops  so  bright  to  see, 
As  from  thy  presence  showers  a  rain  of  melody. 

"Like  a  high-born  maiden 

In  a  palace  tower, 
Soothing  her  love -laden 

Soul  in  secret  hour 
With  music  sweet  as  love,  which  overflows  her  bower; 


*  "A  Defense  of  Poetry,"  in  his  Essays. 


PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY. 


"Like  a  glow-worm  golden 

In  a  dell  of  dew, 
Scattering  unbeholden 

Its  aerial  hue 
Among  the  flowers  and  grass  which  screen  it  from  the  view ; 

"Like  a  rose  embowered 

In  its  own  green  leaves, 
By  warm  winds  deflowered, 

Till  the  scent  it  gives 
Makes  faint  with  too  much  sweet  these  heavy-winged  thieves. 

"Sound  of  vernal  showers 
On  the  twinkling  grass, 
Rain-awakened  flowers, 

All  that  ever  was 
Joyous  and  clear  and  fresh,  thy  music  doth  surpass." 

In  most  poets,  unearthly  beings  are  introduced  to 
express  peculiar  removed  essences  of  lyrical  rapture  ; 
but  they  are  generally  failures.  Lord  Byron  tried 
this  kind  of  composition  in  "Manfred,"  and  the 
result  is  an  evident  failure.  In  Shelley,  such  sing- 
ing solitary  beings  are  almost  uniformly  successful  ; 
while  writing,  his  mind  really  for  the  moment  was 
in  the  state  in  which  theirs  is  supposed  always  to 
be,  —  he  loved  attenuated  ideas  and  abstracted  ex- 
citement ;  in  expressing  their  nature  he  had  but  to 
set  free  his  own. 

Human  nature  is  not,  however,  long  equal  to  this 
sustained  effort  of  remote  excitement :  the  impulse 
fails,  imagination  fades,  inspiration  dies  away.  With 
the  skylark  it  is  well :  — 

"  With  thy  clear  keen  joyance, 

Languor  cannot  be ; 
Shadow  of  annoyance 

Never  came  near  thee : 
Thou  lovest  ;   but  ne'er  knew  love's  sad  satiety." 

But  in  unsoaring  human  nature,  languor  comes,  fatigue 
palls,  melancholy  oppresses,  melody  dies  away.  The 
universe  is  not  all  blue  sky ;  there  is  the  thick  fog 


122  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  the  heavy  earth.  "The  world,"  says  Mr.  Emer- 
son, ."is  mundane:"*  a  creeping  sense  of  weight  is 
part  of  the  most  aspiring  nature ;  to  the  most  thrill- 
ing rapture  succeeds  despondency,  perhaps  pain.  To 
Shelley  this  was  peculiarly  natural.  His  dreams  of 
reform,  of  a  world  which  was  to  be,  called  up  the 
imaginative  ecstasy ;  his  soul  bounded  forward  into 
the  future :  but  it  is  not  possible  even  to  the  most 
abstracted  and  excited  mind  to  place  its  happiness 
in  the  expected  realization  of  impossible  schemes,  and 
yet  not  occasionally  be  uncertain  of  those  schemes. 
The  rigid  frame  of  society,  the  heavy  heap  of  tradi- 
tional institutions,  the  solid  slowness  of  ordinary 
humanity,  depress  the  aspiring  fancy.  "Since  the 
fathers  fell  asleep,  all  things  continue  as  they  were 
from  the  beginning."  t  Occasionally  we  must  think 
of  our  fathers  ;  no  man  can  always  dream  of  ever 
altering  all  which  is.  It  is  characteristic  of  Shelley, 
that  at  the  end  of  his  most  rapturous  and  sanguine 
lyrics  there  intrudes  the  cold  consciousness  of  this 
world.  So  with  his  Grecian  dreams  :  — 

"  A  brighter  Hellas  rears  its  mountains 

From  waves  serener  far ; 
A  new  Peneus  rolls  its  fountains 

Against  the  morning  star. 
Where  fairer  Tempes  bloom,  there  sleep 
Young  Cyclads  on  a  sunnier  deep. 

"A  loftier  Argo  cleaves  the  main, 

Fraught  with  a  later  prize ; 
Another  Orpheus  sings  again, 

And  loves,  and  weeps,  and  dies  ; 
A  new  Ulysses  leaves  once  more 
Calypso  for  his  native  shore." 

But  he  ends  :  — 

' '  Oh,  cease  !  must  hate  and  death  return  ? 
Cease  !  must  men  kill  and  die  ? 


*  I  find  no  such  words  in  his  works.  —  ED. 
t2  Peter  iii.  4. 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  123 

Cease  !  drain  not  to  its  dregs  the  urn 

Of  bitter  prophecy. 
The  world  is  weary  of  the  past,  — 
Oh,  might  it  die  or  rest  at  last ! "  * 

In  many  of  his  poems  the  failing  of  the  feeling  is 
as  beautiful  as  its  short  .moment  of  hope  and  buoy- 
ancy. 

The  excellence  of  Shelley  does  not,  however,  extend 
equally  over  the  whole  domain  of  lyrical  poetry.  That 
species  of  art  may  be  divided  —  not  perhaps  with  the 
accuracy  of  science,  but  with  enough  for  the  rough 
purposes  of  popular  criticism  —  into  the  human  and 
the  abstract.  The  sphere  of  the  former  is  of  course 
the  actual  life,  passions,  and  actions  of  real  men. 
Such  are  the  war-songs  of  rude  nations  especially  :  in 
that  early  age  there  is  no  subject  for  art  but  natural 
life  and  primitive  passion ;  at  a  later  time,  when  from 
the  deposit  of  the  debris  of  a  hundred  philosophies,  a 
large  number  of  half-personified  abstractions  are  part 
of  the  familiar  thoughts  and  language  of  all  mankind, 
there  are  new  objects  to  excite  the  feelings,  —  we 
might  even  say  there  are  new  feelings  to  be  excited  ; 
the  rough  substance  of  original  passion  is  sublimated 
and  attenuated  till  we  hardly  recognize  its  identity. 
Ordinarily  and  in  most  minds  the  emotion  loses  in 
this  process  its  intensity,  or  much  of  it ;  but  this  is 
not  universal,  —  in  some  peculiar  minds  it  is  possible 
to  find  an  almost  dizzy  intensity  of  excitement  called 
forth  by  some  fancied  abstraction,  remote  altogether 
from  the  eyes  and  senses  of  men.  The  love  lyric 
in  its  simplest  form  is  probably  the  most  intense 
expression  of  primitive  passion ;  yet  not  in  those 
lyrics  where  such  intensity  is  the  greatest  —  in  those 
of  Burns,  for  example  —  is  the  passion  so  dizzy,  be- 
wildering, and  bewildered  as  in  the  "  Epipsychidion " 
of  Shelley,  the  passion  of  which  never  came  into 
the  real  world  at  all,  was  only  a  fiction  founded  on 

*"  Hellas." 


124        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

fact,  and  was  wholly  —  and  even  Shelley  felt  it  —  in- 
consistent with  the  inevitable  conditions  of  ordinary 
existence.  In  this  point  of  view,  and  especially  also 
taking  account  of  his  peculiar  religious  opinions,  it 
is  remarkable  that  Shelley  should  have  taken  extreme 
delight  in  the  Bible  as  a  composition  :  he  is  the  least 
biblical  of  poets.  The  whole,  inevitable,  essential 
conditions  of  real  life — the  whole  of  its  plain,  natural 
joys  and  sorrows  —  are  described  in  the  Jewish  lit- 
erature as  they  are  described  nowhere  else.  Very 
often  they  are  assumed  rather  than  delineated ;  and 
the  brief  assumption  is  more  effective  than  the  most 
elaborate  description.  There  is  none  of  the  delicate 
sentiment  and  enhancing  sympathy  which  a  modern 
writer  would  think  necessary;  the  inexorable  facts 
are  dwelt  on  with  a  stern  humanity,  which  recognizes 
human  feeling  though  intent  on  something  above  it. 
Of  all  modern  poets,  Wordsworth  shares  the  most  in 
this  peculiarity ;  perhaps  he  is  the  only  recent  one 
who  has  it  at  all.  He  knew  the  hills  beneath  whose 
shade  ' '  the  generations  are  prepared  "  :  — 

Much  did  he  see  of  men, 

Their  passions  and  their  feelings ;    chiefly  those 

Essential  and  eternal  in  the  heart, 

That  'mid  the  simpler  forms  of  rural  life 

Exist  more  simple  in  their  elements, 

And  speak  a  plainer  language. "  * 

Shelley  has  nothing  of  this.  The  essential  feelings  he 
hoped  to  change ;  the  eternal  facts  he  struggled  to 
remove.  Nothing  in  human  life  to  him  was  inevita- 
ble or  fixed ;  he  fancied  he  could  alter  it  all.  His 
sphere  is  the  "unconditioned";  he  floats  away  into 
an  imaginary  Elysium  or  an  expected  Utopia,  —  beau- 
tiful and  excellent,  of  course,  but  having  nothing  in 
common  with  the  absolute  laws  of  the  present  world. 
Even  in  the  description  of  mere  nature  the  difference 
may  be  noted.  Wordsworth  describes  the  earth  as 


*"  Excursion, "  Book  i. 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  125 

we  know  it,  with  .all  its  peculiarities ;  where  there 
are  moors  and  hills,  where  the  lichen  grows,  where 
the  slate-rock  juts  out.  Shelley  describes  the  uni- 
verse. He  rushes  away  among  the  stars ;  this  earth 
is  an  assortment  of  imagery,  he  uses  it  to  deck  some 
unknown  planet.  He  scorns  "the  smallest  light  that 
twinkles  in  the  heavens " :  his  theme  is  the  vast,  the 
infinite,  the  immeasurable.  He  is  not  of  our  home, 
nor  homely  ;  he  describes  not  our  world,  but  that 
which  is  common  to  all  worlds,  —  the  Platonic  idea 
of  a  world.  Where  it  can,  his  genius  soars  from  the 
concrete  and  real  into  the  unknown,  the  indefinite, 
and  the  void. 

Shelley's  success  in  the  abstract  lyric  would  pre- 
pare us  for  expecting  that  he  would  fail  in  attempts 
at  eloquence.  The  mind  which  bursts  forward  of 
itself  into  the  inane  is  not  likely  to  be  eminent  in 
the  composed  adjustments  of  measured  persuasion. 
A  voluntary  self-control  is  necessary  to  the  orator : 
even  when  he  declaims,  he  must  only  let  himself  go  ; 
a  keen  will  must  be  ready,  a  wakeful  attention  at 
hand,  to  see  that  he  does  not  say  a  word  by  which 
his  audience  will  not  be  touched.  The  eloquence  of 
"Queen  Mab"  is  of  that  unpersuasive  kind  which 
is  admired  in  the  earliest  youth,  when  things  and 
life  are  unknown,  when  all  that  is  intelligible  is  the 
sound  of  words. 

Lord  Macaulay,  in  a  passage  to  which  we  have 
referred  already,  speaks  of  Shelley  as  having,  more 
than  any  other  poet,  many  of  the  qualities  of  the 
great  old  masters :  two  of  these  he  has  especially. 
In  the  first  place,  his  imagination  is  classical  rather 
than  romantic.  We  should  perhaps  apologize  for 
using  words  which  have  been  used  so  often,  but 
which  hardly  convey  even  now  a  clear  and  distinct 
meaning ;  yet  they  seem  the  best  for  conveying  a 
distinction  of  this  sort.  When  we  attempt  to  distin- 
guish the  imagination  from  the  fancy,  we  find  that 
they  are  often  related  as  a  beginning  to  an  ending. 


12G  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

On  a  sudden  we  do  not  know  how  a  new  image,  form, 
idea,  occurs  to  our  minds ;  sometimes  it  is  borne  in 
upon  us  with  a  flash,  sometimes  we  seem  unawares 
to  stumble  upon  it  and  find  it  as  if  it  had  long 
been  there  :  in  either  case  the  involuntary,  unantici- 
pated appearance  of  this  new  thought  or  image  is  a 
primitive  fact,  which  we  cannot  analyze  or  account 
for.  We  say  it  originated  in  our  imagination  or 
creative  faculty,  but  this  is  a  mere  expression  of  the 
completeness  of  our  ignorance  :  we  could  only  define 
the  imagination  as  the  faculty  which  produces  such 
effects,  —  we  know  nothing  of  it  or  its  constitution. 
Again,  on  this  original  idea  a  large  number  of  ac- 
cessory and  auxiliary  ideas  seem  to  grow  or  accumu- 
late insensibly,  casually,  and  without  our  intentional 
effort ;  the  bare  primitive  form  attracts  a  clothing 
of  delicate  materials,  —  an  adornment  not  altering  its 
essences,  but  enhancing  its  effect :  this  we  call  the 
work  of  the  fancy.  An  exquisite  delicacy  in  appro- 
priating fitting  accessories  is  as  much  the  character- 
istic excellence  of  a  fanciful  mind,  as  the  possession 
of  large,  simple,  bold  ideas  is  of  an  imaginative  one. 
The  last  is  immediate :  the  first  comes  minute  by 
minute.  The  distinction  is  like  what  one  fancies 
between  sculpture  and  painting.  If  we  look  at  a 
delicate  statue,  —  a  Venus  or  Juno,  —  it  does  not  sug- 
gest any  slow  elaborate  process  by  which  its  express- 
ion was  chiseled  and  its  limbs  refined ;  it  seems  a 
simple  fact :  we  look,  and  require  no  account  of  it : 
it  exists.  The  greatest  painting  suggests  not  only 
a  creative  act  but  a  decorative  process  :  day  by  day 
there  was  something  new  ;  we  could  watch  the  tints 
laid  on,  the  dresses  tinged,  the  perspective  growing 
and  growing.  There  is  something  statuesque  about 
the  imagination  ;  there  is  the  gradual  complexity  of 
painting  in  the  most  exquisite  productions  of  the 
fancy.  When  we  speak  of  this  distinction,  we  seem 
almost  to  be  speaking  of  the  distinction  between 
ancient  and  modern  literature.  The  characteristic  of 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  127 

the  classical  literature  is  the  simplicity  with  which 
the  imagination  appears  in  it ;  that  of  modern  liter- 
ature is  the  profusion  with  which  the  most  various 
adornments  of  the  accessory  fancy  are  thrown  and 
lavished  upon  it.  Perhaps  nowhere  is  this  more 
conspicuous  than  in  the  modern  treatment  of  antique 
subjects.  One  of  the  most  essentially  modern  of  re- 
cent poets,  Keats,  has  an  "Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn"; 
it  begins  :  — 

' '  Thou  still  unravished  bride  of  quietness  ! 

Thou  foster-child  of  Silence  and  slow  Time, 
Sylvan  historian !   who  canst  thus  express 

A  flowery  tale  more  sweetly  than  our  rhyme : 
What  leaf -fringed  legend  haunts  about  thy  shape 

Of  deities  or  mortals,  or  of  both, 
In  Tempe  or  the  dales  of  Arcady  ? 

What  men  or  gods  are  these?    What  maidens  loth? 
What  mad  pursuit  ?    What  struggle  to  escape  ? 
What  pipes  and  timbrels?    What  wild  ecstasy?" 

No  ancient  poet  would  have  dreamed  of  writing 
thus  :  there  would  have  been  no  indistinct  shadowy 
warmth,  no  breath  of  surrounding  beauty  ;  his  delin- 
eation would  have  been  cold,  distinct,  chiseled  like 
the  urn  itself.  The  use  which  such  a  poet  as  Keats 
makes  of  ancient  mythology  is  exactly  similar.  He 
owes  his  fame  to  the  inexplicable  art  with  which  he 
has  breathed  a  soft  tint  over  the  marble  forms  of 
gods  and  goddesses,  enhancing  their  beauty  without 
impairing  their  chasteness.  The  naked  kind  of  im- 
agination is  not  peculiar  to  a  mythological  age : 
the  growth  of  civilization,  at  least  in  Greece,  rather 
increased  than  diminished  the  imaginative  bareness 
of  the  poetical  art.  It  seems  to  attain  its  height  in 
Sophocles :  if  we  examine  any  of  his  greater  pass- 
ages, a  principal  beauty  is  their  reserved  simplicity. 
A  modern  reader  almost  necessarily  uses  them  as 
materials  for  fancy  :  we  are  too  used  to  little  circum- 
stance to  be  able  to  do  without  it.  Take  the  passage 
in  which  QEdipus  contrasts  the  conduct  of  his  sons 
with  that  of  his  daughters :  — 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 


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What  a  contrast  to  the  ravings  of  Lear  !  What  a 
world  of  detail  Shakespeare  would  have  put  into 
the  passage!  what  talk  of  "sulphurous  and  thought- 
executing  fires,"  "simulars  of  virtue."  "pent-up  guilts," 
and  "the  thick  rotundity  of  the  world"  If  Decorum 
is  the  principal  thing  in  Sophocles.  The  conception 
of  CEdipus  is  not 

'  '  Crowned  \vith  rank  f  umiter  and  furrow  weeds, 
With  harlocks,  hemlock,  nettle,  cuckoo-flowers."! 

There  are  no  "idle  weeds"  among  the  "sustaining 
corn."§  The  conception  of  Lear  is  that  of  an  old 


*"  CEdipus  at  Colonos,"  lines  337-352:  — 

"  Oh,  they !  in  habits  and  in  soul  at  once 
Shaped  to  the  ways  of  Egypt,  —  where  the  men 
Sit  by  the  fireside  weaving,  and  their  wives 
Toil  in  the  field  to  furnish  bread  for  both. 
So  they  whose  duty  was  to  suffer  thus 
For  you,  my  daughters,  keep  like  girls  at  home, 
While  in  their  stead  you  bear  a  wretch's  woes. 
She  here,  since  childhood's  ways  she  left  behind 
And  gained  a  woman's  vigor,  ever  near, 
Ill-fated,  guides  the  old  man's  wandering  feet, 
Famished  and  barefoot  often,  straying  still 
Day  after  day  the  savage  forest  through, 
Scorched  by  the  sun  and  drenched  by  many  a  storm, 
In  patient  toil  her  very  household's  wants 
Neglected  so  her  father  may  be  fed." 

f'King  Lear,"  iii.  2.  Jlbid.,  iv.  4.  §Ibid. 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  129 

gnarled  oak,  gaunt  and  quivering  in  the  stormy 
sky,  with  old  leaves  and  withered  branches  tossing 
in  the  air,  and  all  the  complex  growth  of  a  hun- 
dred years  creaking  and  nodding  to  its  fall :  that  of 
OEdipus  is  the  peak  of  Teneriffe,  as  we  fancied  it 
in  our  childhood,  by  itself  and  snowy,  above  among 
the  stormy  clouds,  heedless  of  the  angry  winds  and 
the  desolate  waves,  —  single,  ascending,  and  alone. 
Or,  to  change  the  metaphor  to  one  derived  from  an 
art  where  the  same  qualities  of  mind  have  produced 
kindred  effects,  ancient  poetry  is  like  a  Grecian  tem- 
ple, with  pure  form  arid  rising  columns,  —  created,  one 
fancies,  by  a  single  effort  of  an  originative  nature ; 
modern  literature  seems  to  have  sprung  from  the 
involved  brain  of  a  Gothic  architect,  and  resembles  a 
huge  cathedral,  the  work  of  the  perpetual  industry 
of  centuries,  —  complicated  and  infinite  in  details,  but 
by  their  choice  and  elaboration  producing  an  effect 
of  unity  which  is  not  inferior  to  that  of  the  other, 
and  is  heightened  by  the  multiplicity  through  which 
it  is  conveyed.  And  it  is  this  warmth  of  circum- 
stance, this  profusion  of  interesting  detail,  which 
has  caused  the  name  "romantic"  to  be  perseveringly 
applied  to  modern  literature. 

We  need  only  to  open  Shelley  to  show  how  es- 
sentially classical  in  its  highest  efforts  his  art  is. 
Indeed,  although  nothing  can  be  further  removed 
from  the  staple  topics  of  the  classical  writers  than 
the  abstract  lyric,  yet  their  treatment  is  nearly  essen- 
tial to  it.  We  have  said  its  sphere  is  in  what  the 
Germans  call  the  "unconditioned,"-  — in  the  unknown, 
immeasurable,  and  untrodden ;  it  follows  from  this 
that  we  cannot  know  much  about  it.  We  cannot 
know  detail  in  tracts  we  have  never  visited  :  the  infi- 
nite has  no  form,  the  immeasurable  no  outline  ;  that 
which  is  common  to  all  worlds  is  simple :  there  is 
therefore  no  scope  for  the  accessory  fancy.  With  a 
single  soaring  effort,  imagination  may  reach  her  end  : 
if  she  fail,  no  fancy  can  help  her;  if  she  succeed, 
VOL.  I.  — 9 


130       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

there  will  be  no  petty  accumulations  of  insensible 
circumstance  in  a  region  far  above  all  things.  Shel- 
ley's excellence  in  the  abstract  lyric  is  almost  another 
phrase  for  the  simplicity  of  his  impulsive  imagina- 
tion. He  shows  it  on  other  subjects  also.  We  have 
spoken  of  his  bare  treatment  of  the  ancient  mythol- 
ogy. It  is  the  same  with  his  treatment  of  nature  : 
in  the  description  of  the  celestial  regions  quoted  be- 
fore, —  one  of  the  most  characteristic  passages  in 
his  writings, — the  details  are  few,  the  air  thin,  the 
lights  distinct.  We  are  conscious  of  an  essential 
difference  if  we  compare  the  "Ode  to  a  Nightin- 
gale," in  Keats,  —  for  instance,  such  verses  as  — 

"  I  cannot  see  what  flowers  are  at  my  feet, 

Nor  what  soft  incense  hangs  upon  the  boughs  ; 
But,  in  embalmed  darkness,  guess  each  sweet 

Wherewith  the  seasonable  month  endows 
The  grass,  the  thicket,  and  the  fruit-tree  wild  : 
White  hawthorn,  and  the  pastoral  eglantine  ; 
Fast-fading  violets  covered  up  in  leaves ; 

And  mid-May's  eldest  child, 
The  coming  musk-rose,  full  of  dewy  wine, 
The  murmurous  haunt  of  flies  on  summer  eves. 

"  Darkling  I  listen ;  and  for  many  a  time 

I  have  been  half  in  love  with  easeful  Death, 
Called  him  soft  names  in  many  a  mused  rhyme, 

To  take  into  the  air  my  quiet  breath  : 
Now  more  than  ever  seems  it  rich  to  die, 
To  cease  upon  the  midnight  with  no  pain, 
While  thou  art  pouring  forth  thy  soul  abroad 

In  such  an  ecstasy  ! 

Still  wouldst  thou  sing,  and  I  have  ears  in  vain, — 
To  thy  high  requiem  become  a  sod,"- 

with  the  conclusion  of  the  ode  "To  a  Skylark":  — 

"  Yet  if  we  could  scorn 

Hate  and  pride  and  fear; 
If  we  were  things  born 
Not  to  shed  a  tear, — 
I  know  not  how  thy  joy  we  ever  should  come  near. 


PERCY   BYSSHE   SHELLEY.  131 

"  Better  than  all  measures 

Of  delightful  sound, 
Better  than  all  treasures 

That  in  books  are  found, 
Thy  skill  to  poet  were,  thou  scorner  of  the  ground ! 

"  Teach  me  half  the  gladness 

That  thy  brain  must  know ; 
Such  harmonious  madness 

From  my  lips  would  flow, 
The  world  should  listen  then,  as  I  am  listening  now." 

"We  can  hear  that  the  poetry  of  Keats  is  a  rich, 
composite,  voluptuous  harmony ;  that  of  Shelley  a 
clear  single  ring  of  penetrating  melody. 

Of  course,  however,  this  criticism  requires  limita- 
tion :  there  is  an  obvious  sense  in  which  Shelley  is  a 
fanciful  as  contradistinguished  from  an  imaginative 
poet.  These  words,  being  invented  for  the  popular 
expression  of  differences  which  can  be  remarked 
without  narrow  inspection,  are  apt  to  mislead  us 
when  we  apply  them  to  the  exact  results  of  a  near 
and  critical  analysis.  Besides  the  use  of  the  word 
"fancy"  to  denote  the  power  which  adorns  and 
amplifies  the  product  of  the  primitive  imagination,  we 
also  employ  it  to  denote  the  weaker  exercise  of  the 
faculty  which  itself  creates  those  elementary  products. 
We  use  the  word  "imaginative"  only  for  strong,  vast, 
imposing,  interesting  conceptions ;  we  use  the  word 
"fanciful"  when  we  have  to  speak  of  smaller  and 
weaker  creations,  which  amaze  us  less  at  the  moment 
and  affect  us  more  slightly  afterwards.  Of  course, 
metaphysically  speaking,  it  is  not  likely  that  there 
will  be  found  to  be  any  distinction  :  the  faculty  which 
creates  the  most  attractive  ideas  is  doubtless  the  same 
as  that  which  creates  the  less  attractive.  Common 
language  marks  the  distinction,  because  common 
people  are  impressed  by  the  contrast  between  what 
affects  them  much  and  what  affects  them  little  ;  but 
it  is  no  evidence  of  the  entire  difference  of  the  latent 
agencies.  Speech,  as  usual,  refers  to  sensations  and 
not  to  occult  causes.  Of  fancies  of  this  sort  Shelley 


132  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

is  full:  whole  poems  —  as  the  "Witch  of  Atlas "- 
are  composed  of  nothing  else.  Living  a  good  deal 
in  and  writing  a  great  deal  about  the  abstract  world, 
it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  often  deal  in  fine 
subtleties,  affecting  very  little  the  concrete  hearts  of 
real  men.  Many  pages  of  his  are  in  consequence 
nearly  unintelligible,  even  to  good  critics  of  common 
poetry.  The  air  is  too  rarefied  for  hardy  and  healthy 
lungs :  these  like,  as  Lord  Bacon  expressed  it,  to 
"work  upon  stuff."*  From  his  habitual  choice  of 
slight  and  airy  subjects,  Shelley  may  be  called  a 
fanciful  as  opposed  to  an  imaginative  poet ;  from  his 
bare  delineations  of  great  objects,  his  keen  expression 
of  distinct  impulses,  he  should  be  termed  an  imagin- 
ative rather  than  a  fanciful  one. 

Some  of  this  odd  combination  of  qualities  Shelley 
doubtless  owed  to  the  structure  of  his  senses.  By 
one  of  those  singular  results  which  constantly  meet 
us  in  metaphysical  inquiry,  the  imagination  and 
fancy  are  singularly  influenced  by  the  bodily  sensi- 
bility. One  might  have  fancied  that  the  faculty  by 
which  the  soul  soars  into  the  infinite,  and  sees  what 
it  cannot  see  with  the  eye  of  the  body,  would  have 
•  been  peculiarly  independent  of  that  body  ;  but  the 
reverse  is  the  case, — vividness  of  sensation  seems 
required  to  awaken,  delicacy  to  define,  copiousness 
to  enrich,  the  visionary  faculty.  A  large  experience 
proves  that  a  being  who  is  blind  to  this  world  will 
be  blind  to  the  other ;  that  a  coarse  expectation  of 
what  is  not  seen  will  follow  from  a  coarse  percep- 
tion of  what  is  seen.  Shelley's  sensibility  was  vivid 
but  peculiar.  Hazlitt  used  to  say  "  he  had  seen  him, 
and  did  not  like  his  looks : "  f  he  had  the  thin  keen 
excitement  of  the  fanatic  student,  not  the  broad 
natural  energy  which  Hazlitt  expected  from  a  poet. 
The  diffused  life  of  genial  enjoyment  which  was 
common  to  Scott  and  to  Shakespeare  was  quite  out  of 
his  way ;  like  Mr.  Emerson,  he  would  have  wondered 

*  See  note  to  page  226,  Vol.  iii. 

t  A  "made"  quotation  from  P.  G.  Patmore's  "My  Friends  and  Acquaint- 
ances," sub-head  "Opinions  and  Critical  Estimates." 


PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY.  133 

they  could  be  content  with  a  "mean  and  jocular 
human  life  in  his  poetry.  He  was  an  abstract  stu- 
dent, anxious  about  deep  philosophies  ;  and  he  had 
not  that  settled,  contemplative,  allotted  acquaintance 
with  external  nature  which  is  so  curious  in  Milton, 
the  greatest  of  studious  poets.  The  exact  opposite, 
however,  to  Shelley,  in  the  nature  of  his  sensibility, 
is  Keats.  That  great  poet  used  to  pepper  his  tongue, 
"to  enjoy  in  all  its  grandeur  the  cool  flavor  of  deli- 
cious claret : "  when  you  know  it,  you  seem  to  read 
it  in  his  poetry,  —  there  is  the  same  luxurious  sen- 
timent, the  same  poise  on  fine  sensation.  Shelley 
was  the  reverse  of  this :  he  was  a  water-drinker ; 
his  verse  runs  quick  and  chill,  like  a  pure  crystal 
stream.  The  sensibility  of  Keats  was  attracted  too 
by  the  spectacle  of  the  universe  :  he  could  not  keep 
his  eye  from  seeing  or  his  ears  from  hearing  the 
glories  of  it ;  all  the  beautiful  objects  of  nature  re- 
appear by  name  in  his  poetry.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  abstract  idea  of  beauty  is  forever  celebrated  in 
Shelley  ;  it  haunted  his  soul :  but  it  was  independ- 
ent of  special  things,  —  it  was  the  general  surface 
of  beauty  which  lies  upon  all  things.  It  was  the 
smile  of  the  universe  and  the  expression  of  the 
world  :  it  was  not  the  vision  of  a  land  of  corn  and 
wine.  The  nerves  of  Shelley  quivered  at  the  idea 
of  loveliness,  but  no  coarse  sensation  obtruded  par- 
'ticular  objects  upon  him;  he  was  left  to  himself  with 
books  and  reflection. 

So  far,  indeed,  from  Shelley  having  a  peculiar 
tendency  to  dwell  on  and  prolong  the  sensation  of 
pleasure,  he  has  a  perverse  tendency  to  draw  out 
into  lingering  keenness  the  torture  of  agony.  Of  his 
common  recurrence  to  the  dizzy  pain  of  mania  we 
have  formerly  spoken  ;  but  this  is  not  -the  only  pain. 
The  nightshade  is  commoner  in  his  poems  than  the 
daisy.  The  nerve  is  ever  laid  bare ;  as  often  as  it 
touches  the  open  air  of  the  real  world,  it  quivers 


*"0ur  life  ...  is  common  and  mean."  —  "Man  the  Reformer." 


134  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

with  subtle  pain.  The  high  intellectual  impulses 
which  animated  him  are  too  incorporeal  for  human 
nature  :  they  begin  in  buoyant  joy,  they  end  in  eager 
suffering. 

In  style,  said  Mr.  Wordsworth, — in  workmanship, 
we  think  his  expression  was,  —  Shelley  is  one  of  the 
best  of  us.  This  too,  we  think,  was  the  second  of 
the  peculiarities  to  which  Lord  Macaulay  referred 
when  he  said  that  Shelley  had,  more  than  any  recent 
poet,  some  of  the  qualities  of  the  great  old  masters. 
The  peculiarity  of  his  style  is  its  intellectuality ;  and 
this  strikes  us  the  more  from  its  contrast  with  his 
impulsiveness.  He  had  something  of  this  in  life  : 
hurried  away  by  sudden  desires  as  he  was  in  his 
choice  of  ends,  we  are  struck  with  a  certain  com- 
parative measure  and  adjustment  in  his  choice  of 
means.  So  in  his  writings :  over  the  most  intense 
excitement,  the  grandest  objects,  the  keenest  agony, 
the  most  buoyant  joy,  he  throws  an  air  of  subtle 
mind.  His  language  is  minutely  and  acutely  search- 
ing ;  at  the  dizziest  height  of  meaning  the  keenness 
of  the  words  is  greatest.  As  in  mania,  so  in  his 
descriptions  of  it,  the  acuteness  of  the  mind  seems 
to  survive  the  mind  itself.  It  was  from  Plato  and 
Sophocles,  doubtless,  that  he  gained  the  last  perfec- 
tion in  preserving  the  accuracy  of  the  intellect  when 
treating  of  the  objects  of  the  imagination  ;  but  in 
its  essence  it  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  own  nature. 
As  it  was  the  instinct  of  Byron  to  give  in  glaring 
words  the  gross  phenomena  of  evident  objects,  so  it 
was  that  of  Shelley  to  refine  the  most  inscrutable 
with  the  curious  nicety  of  an  attenuating  metaphysi- 
cian ;  in  the  wildest  of  ecstasies  his  self -anatomizing 
intellect  is  equal  to  itself. 

There  is  much  more  which  might  be  said,  and 
which  ought  to  be  said,  of  Shelley ;  but  our  limits 
are  reached.  We  have  not  attempted  a  complete 
criticism  :  we  have  only  aimed  to  show  how  some  of 
the  peculiarities  of  his  works  and  life  may  be  traced 
to  the  peculiarity  of  his  nature. 


BEBANGEE.  * 
(1857.) 

THE  invention  of  books  has  at  least  one  great  ad- 
vantage :  it  has  half  abolished  one  of  the  worst  con- 
sequences of  the  diversity  of  languages.  Literature 
enables  nations  to  understand  one  another ;  oral  inter- 
course hardly  does  this.  In  English  a  distinguished 
foreigner  says  not  what  he  thinks,  but  what  he  can. 
There  is  a  certain  intimate  essence  of  national  mean- 
ing which  is  as  untranslatable  as  good  poetry.  Dry 
thoughts  are  cosmopolitan  ;  but  the  delicate  associa- 
tions of  language  which  express  character,  the  traits 
of  speech  which  mark  the  man,  differ  in  every  tongue, 
so  that  there  are  not  even  cumbrous  circumlocutions 
that  are  equivalent  in  another.  National  character 
is  a  deep  thing,  —  a  shy  thing ;  you  cannot  exhibit 
much  of  it  to  people  who  have  a  difficulty  in  under- 
standing your  language  :  you  are  in  strange  society, 
and  you  feel  you  will  not  be  understood. 

"Let  an  English  gentleman,"  writes  Mr.  Thackeray,  "who  has 
dwelt  two,  four,  or  ten  years  in  Paris,  say,  at  the  end  of  any  given 
period,  how  much  he  knows  of  French  society,  how  many  French 
houses  he  has  entered,  and  how  many  French  friends  he  has 
made  ?  Intimacy  there  is  none  ;  we  see  but  the  outsides  of  the 
people.  Year  by  year  we  live  in  France,  and  grow  gray  and  see  no 


*CEuvres  completes  de  C.-J.  de  Boranger.  Nouvelle  edition  revue  par 
1'Auteur,  contenant  les  Dix  Chansons  nouvelles,  le  facsimile  d'une  Lettre  de 
Boranper ;  illustree  de  cinquante-deux  gravures  sur  acier,  d'apres  Chariot, 
D'Aubitjny,  Johannot,  Grenier,  De  Lemud,  Pauquet,  Penguilly,  RafTet,  Sandoz, 
execute'es  par  les  artistes  les  plus  distingues,  et  d'un  beau  portrait  d'apres 
nature  par  Sandoz.  2  vols.  8vo.  1855. 

(135) 


136  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

more.  We  play  dearth  with  Monsieur  de  Trefle  every  night ;  but 
what  do  we  know  of  the  heart  of  the  man  —  of  the  inward  ways, 
thoughts,  and  customs  of  Trefle?  We  have  danced  with  Countess 
Flicflac,  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays,  ever  since  the  peace ;  and  how 
far  are  we  advanced  in  her  acquaintance  since  we  first  twirled  her 
round  a  room  ?  We  know  her  velvet  gown  and  her  diamonds  ;  we 
know  her  smiles,  and  her  simpers,  and  her  rouge  :  but  the  real, 
rougeless,  intime  Flicflac  we  know  not."* 

Even  if  our  words  did  not  stutter  (as  they  do  stutter) 
on  our  tongue,  she  would  not  tell  us  what  she  is. 
Literature  has  half  mended  this.  Books  are  export- 
able ;  the  essence  of  national  character  lies  flat  on 
a  printed  page.  Men  of  genius  with  the  impulses  of 
solitude  produce  works  of  art,  whose  words  can  be 
read  and  reread  and  partially  taken  in  by  foreign- 
ers to  whom  they  could  never  be  uttered,  the  very 
thought  of  whose  unsympathizing  faces  would  freeze 
them  on  the  surface  of  the  mind. 

Alexander  Smith  has  accused  poetical  reviewers  of 
beginning  as  far  as  possible  from  their  subject.  It 
may  seem  to  some,  though  it  is  not  so  really,  that 
we  are  exemplifying  this  saying  in  commencing  as 
we  have  commenced  an  article  on  Beranger. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  poetry,  which  one  may  call 
poems  of  this  world  and  poems  not  of  this  world. 
We  see  a  certain  society  on  the  earth,  held  together 
by  certain  relations,  performing  certain  acts,  exhibit- 
ing certain  phenomena,  calling  forth  certain  emotions. 
The  millions  of  human  beings  who  compose  it  have 
their  various  thoughts,  feelings,  and  desires.  They 
hate,  act,  and  live.  The  social  bond  presses  them 
closely  together ;  and  from  their  proximity  new  sen- 
timents arise,  which  are  half  superficial  and  do  not 
touch  the  inmost  soul,  but  which  nevertheless  are 
unspeakably  important  in  the  actual  constitution  of 

*  We  have  been  obliged  to  abridge  the  above  extract,  and  in  so  doing 
have  left  out  the  humor  of  it. —  B.  [From  the  "Paris  Sketch  Book"  ;  con- 
densed from  the  section  "On  Some  French  Fashionable  Novels."  —  ED.] 


BERANGER.  137 


human  nature,  and  work  out  their  effects  for  good 
and  for  evil  on  the  characters  of  those  who  are  sub- 
jected to  their  influence.  These  sentiments  of  the 
world,  as  one  may  speak,  differ  from  the  more  prim- 
itive impulses  and  emotions  of  our  inner  nature  as 
the  superficial  phenomena  of  the  material  universe 
from  what  we  fancy  is  its  real  essence.  Passing  hues, 
transient  changes  have  their  course  before  our  eyes ; 
a  multiplex  diorama  is  forever  displayed ;  underneath 
it  all  we  fancy — such  is  the  inevitable  constitution  of 
our  thinking  faculty  —  a  primitive  immovable  essence, 
which  is  modified  into  all  the  ever-changing  phenom- 
ena we  see,  which  is  the  gray  granite  whereon  they  lie, 
the  primary  substance  whose  debris  they  all  are.  Just 
so  from  the  original  and  primitive  emotions  of  man, 
society  —  the  evolving  capacity  of  combined  action  — 
brings  out  desires  which  seem  new,  in  a  sense  are 
new ;  which  have  no  existence  out  of  the  society  itself, 
are  colored  by  its  customs  at  the  moment,  change  with 
the  fashions  of  the  age.  Such  a  principle  is  what  we 
may  call  social  gayety :  the  love  of  combined  amuse- 
ment which  all  men  feel  and  variously  express,  and 
which  is  to  the  higher  faculties  of  the  soul  what  a  gay 
running  stream  is  to  the  everlasting  mountain,  —  a 
light,  altering  element  which  beautifies  while  it  modi- 
fies. Poetry  does  not  shrink  from  expressing  such 
feelings  ;  on  the  contrary,  their  renovating  cheerful- 
ness blends  appropriately  with  her  inspiriting  delight. 
Each  age  and  each  form  of  the  stimulating  imagina- 
tion has  a  fashion  of  its  own.  Sir  "Walter  sings  in 
his  modernized  chivalry:  — 

"Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay: 
On  the  mountain  dawns  the  day ; 
All  the  jolly  chase  is  here, 
With  hawk  and  horse  and  hunting  spear! 
Hounds  are  in  their  couples  yelling, 
Hawks  are  whistling,  horns  are  knelling, 
Merrily,  merrily  mingle  they, 
'Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay!' 


138        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"Louder,  louder  chant  the  lay, 
'  Waken,  lords  and  ladies  gay  I ' 
Tell  them  youth  and  mirth  and  glee 
Run  a  course  as  well  as  we. 
Time,  stern  huntsman  1  who  can  balk  ? 
Stanch  as  hound  and  fleet  as  hawk : 
Think  of  this,  and  rise  with  day, 
Gentle  lords  and  ladies  gay." 

The  poet  of  the  people,  "vilain  et  tres  vilain " 
sings  with  the  pauper  Bohemian  :— 

"Voir  c'est  avoir.     Aliens  courir! 

Vie  errante 

Est  chose  enivrante. 
Voir  c'est  avoir.     Allons  courir  ! 
Car  tout  voir  c'est  tout  conquerir. 

"Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 
De  lois  vaines, 
De  lourdes  chaines ; 
Nous  n'avons  done,  exempts  d'orgueil, 
Ni  berceau,  ni  toit,  ni  cercueil. 

Mais,  croyez-en  notre  gaite, 

Noble  ou  pretre, 

Valet  ou  maitre ; 
Mais,  croyez-en  notre  gaite, 
Le  bonheur  c'est  la  liberte. 

"Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gaite, 

Noble  ou  pretre, 

Valet  ou  maitre ; 
Oui,  croyez-en  notre  gaite, 
Le  bonheur  c'est  la  liberte."* 

The  forms  of  these  poems  of  social  amusement 
are,  in  truth,  as  various  as  the  social  amusement 
itself.  The  variety  of  the  world,  singularly  various 
as  it  everywhere  is,  is  nowhere  so  various  as  in  that. 
Men  have  more  ways  of  amusing  themselves  than  of 
doing  anything  else  they  do.  But  the  essence  —  the 


*"Les  Bohemieus."     See  Appendix. 


BERANGER.  139 


characteristic  —  of  these  poems  everywhere  is,  that 
they  express  more  or  less  well  the  lighter  desires  of 
human  nature ;  those  that  have  least  of  unspeakable 
depth,  partake  most  of  what  is  perishable  and  earthly, 
and  least  of  the  immortal  soul.  The  objects  of  these 
desires  are  social  accidents  ;  excellent  perhaps,  essen- 
tial possibly,  —  so  is  human  nature  made, —  in  one 
form  and  variety  or  another,  to  the  well-being  of  the 
soul,  yet  in  themselves  transitory,  fleeting,  and  in 
other  moods  contemptible.  The  old  saying  was,  that 
to  endure  solitude  a  man  must  either  be  a  beast  or 
a  god  :  *  it  is  in  the  lighter  play  of  social  action,  in 
that  which  is  neither  animal  nor  divine,  which  in  its 
half-way  character  is  so  natural  to  man,  that  these 
poems  of  society,  which  we  have  called  "  poems  of 
amusement,"  have  their  place. 

This  species  does  not,  however,  exhaust  the  whole 
class.  Society  gives  rise  to  another  sort  of  poems, 
differing  from  this  one  as  contemplation  differs  from 
desire.  Society  may  be  thought  of  as  an  object. 
The  varied  scene  of  men  —  their  hopes,  fears,  anxie- 
ties, maxims,  actions  —  presents  a  sight  more  interest- 
ing to  man  than  any  other  which  has  ever  existed, 
or  which  can  exist ;  and  it  may  be  viewed  in  all 
moods  of  mind,  and  with  the  change  of  inward  emo- 
tion as  the  external  object  seems  to  change :  not 
that  it  really  does  so,  but  that  some  sentiments  are 
more  favorable  to  clear-sightedness  than  others  are  ; 
and  some  bring  before  us  one  aspect  of  the  sub- 
ject and  fix  our  attention  upon  it,  others  a  different 
one  and  bind  our  minds  to  that  likewise.  Among 
the  most  remarkable  of  these  varied  views  is  the 
world's  view  of  itself.  The  world,  such  as  it  is,  has 
made  up  its  mind  what  it  is.  Childishly  deceivable 
by  charlatans  on  every  other  subject, —  imposed  on  by 
pedantry,  by  new  and  unfounded  science,  by  ancient 
and  unfounded  reputation,  a  prey  to  pomposity,  over- 
run with  recondite  fools,  ignorant  of  all  else, —  society 
knows  itself.  The  world  knows  a  man  of  the  world. 

*  Bacon,  Essay  on  Friendship,  quoting  from  Aristotle's  "Politica." 


140  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

A  certain  tradition  pervades  it ;  a  disciplina  of  the 
market-place  teaches  what  the  collective  society  of 
men  has  ever  been,  and  what  (so  long  as  the  nature 
of  man  is  the  same)  it  cannot  and  will  not  cease 
to  be.  Literature,  the  written  expression  of  human 
nature  in  every  variety,  takes  up  this  variety  like- 
wise. Ancient  literature  exhibits  it,  from  obvious 
causes,  in  a  more  simple  manner  than  modern  litera- 
ture can.  Those  who  are  brought  up  in  times  like  the 
present  necessarily  hear  a  different  set  of  opinions, 
fall  in  with  other  words,  are  under  the  shadow  of  a 
higher  creed.  In  consequence,  they  cannot  have  the 
simple  naivete  of  the  old  world  ;  they  cannot  speak 
with  easy  equanimity  of  the  fugitiveness  of  life,  the 
necessity  of  death,  of  goodness  as  a  mean,  of  sin  as  an 
extreme.  The  theory  of  the  universe  has  ceased  to  be 
an  open  question.  Still  the  spirit  of  Horace  is  alive, 
and  as  potent  as  that  of  any  man.  His  tone  is  that  of 
prime  ministers ;  his  easy  philosophy  is  that  of  courts 
and  parliaments ;  you  may  hear  his  words  where  no 
other  foreign  words  are  ever  heard.  He  is  but  the 
extreme  and  perfect  type  of  a  whole  class  of  writers, 
some  of  whom  exist  in  every  literary  age,  and  who 
give  an  expression  to  what  we  may  call  the  poetry 
of  equanimity,  —  that  is,  the  world's  view  of  itself; 
its  self-satisfaction,  its  conviction  that  you  must  bear 
what  comes,  not  hope  for  much,  think  some  evil, 
never  be  excited,  admire  little,  and  then  you  will  be 
at  peace.  This  creed  does  not  sound  attractive  in 
description.  Nothing,  it  has  been  said,  is  so  easy  as 
to  be  "religious  on  paper";  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  rather  difficult  to  be  worldly  in  speculation  :  the 
mind  of  man,  when  its  daily  maxims  are  put  before 
it,  revolts  from  anything  so  stupid,  so  mean,  so  poor. 
It  requires  a  consummate  art  to  reconcile  men  in 
print  to  that  moderate  and  insidious  philosophy  which 
creeps  into  all  hearts,  colors  all  speech,  influences  all 
action.  We  may  not  stiffen  common-sense  into  a 
creed ;  our  very  ambition  forbids  :  — 


BERAXGER. 


"  It  hears  a  voice  within  it  tell 
Calm's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well : 
'Tis  all,  perhaps,  which  man  acquires, 
But  'tis  not  what  our  youth  desires."* 

Still,  a  great  artist  may  succeed  in  making  "calm" 
interesting.  Equanimity  has  its  place  in  literature ; 
the  poetry  of  equipoise  is  possible.  Poems  of  society 
have  thus  two  divisions :  that  which  we  mentioned 
first,  the  expression  of  the  feelings  which  are  called 
out  by  the  accidents  of  society ;  next,  the  harmonized 
expression  of  that  philosophy  of  indifference  with 
which  the  world  regards  the  fortunes  of  individuals 
and  its  own. 

We  have  said  that  no  modern  nation  can  produce 
literature  embodying  this  kind  of  cool  reflection  and 
delineation  as  it  was  once  produced.  By  way  of  com- 
pensation, however,  it  maybe  —  it  no  doubt  is — easier 
now  to  produce  the  lyrical  kind  of  poems  of  society, 
the  light  expression  of  its  light  emotions,  than  it  was 
in  ancient  times.  Society  itself  is  better.  There  is 
something  hard  in  paganism,  which  is  always  felt 
even  in  the  softest  traits  of  the  most  delicate  society 
in  antiquity.  The  social  influence  of  women  in  mod- 
ern times  gives  an  interest,  a  little  pervading  excite- 
ment, to  social  events.  Civilization,  besides,  has  made 
comfort  possible ;  it  has,  at  least  in  part,  created  a 
scene  in  which  society  can  be  conducted.  Its  petty 
conveniences  may  or  may  not  be  great  benefits  accord- 
ing to  a  recondite  philosophy  :  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  for  actual  men  and  women,  in  actual  con- 
versation, it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  their 
feet  should  not  be  cold  ;  that  their  eyes  and  mouths 
should  not  be  troubled  with  smoke ;  that  sofas  should 
be  good,  and  attractive  chairs  many.  Modern  times 
have  the  advantage  of  the  ancient  in  the  scenery  of 
flirtation.  The  little  boy  complained  that  you  could 
not  find  "drawing-room"  in  the  dictionary.  Perhaps 
even  because  our  reflections  are  deeper,  our  inner  life 
less  purely  pagan,  our  apparent  life  is  softer  and 
easier.  Some  have  said  that  one  reason  why  physical 

*  yatthew  Arnold,  "  Youth  and  Calm." 


142  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

science  made  so  little  progress  in  ancient  times  was, 
that  people  were  in  doubt  about  more  interesting 
things ;  men  must  have,  it  has  been  alleged,  a  settled 
creed  as  to  human  life  and  human  hopes,  before 
they  will  attend  to  shells  and  snails  and  pressure. 
And  whether  this  be  so  or  not,  perhaps  a  pleasant 
society  is  only  possible  to  persons  at  ease  as  to  what 
is  beyond  society.  Those  only  can  lie  on  the  grass 
who  fear  no  volcano  underneath,  and  can  bear  to 
look  at  the  blue  vault  above. 

Among  modern  nations,  it  is  not  difficult  to  say 
where  we  should  look  for  success  in  the  art  of  social 
poetry.  "Wherever,"  said  Mr.  Lewes  the  other  day, 
"the  French  go,  they  take  what  they  call  their 
civilization,  —  that  is,  a  cafe  and  a  theater."*  And 
though  this  be  a  trifle  severe,  yet  in  its  essence 
its  meaning  is  correct :  the  French  have  in  some 
manner  or  other  put  their  mark  on  all  the  externals 
of  European  life.  The  essence  of  every  country  re- 
mains little  affected  by  their  teaching :  but  in  all  the 
superficial  embellishments  of  society  they  have  en- 
joined the  fashion  ;  and  the  very  language  in  which 
those  embellishments  are  spoken  of  shows  at  once 
whence  they  were  derived.  Something  of  this  is 
doubtless  due  to  the  accidents  of  a  central  position 
and  an  early  and  prolonged  political  influence  ;  but 
more  to  a  certain  neatness  of  nature,  a  certain  finish 
of  the  senses,  which  enables  them  more  easily  than 
others  to  touch  lightly  the  light  things  of  society,  to 
see  the  comme-il-faut.  "I  like,"  said  a  good  judge, 
"to  hear  a  Frenchman  talk:  he  strikes  a  light.'' 
On  a  hundred  topics  he  gives  the  bright,  sharp  edge, 
where  others  have  only  a  blunt  approximation. 

Nor  is  this  anticipation  disappointed.  Reviewers  do 
not  advance  such  theories  unless  they  correspond  with 
known  results.  For  many  years  the  French  have  not 
been  more  celebrated  for  memoirs  which  professedly 
describe  a  real  society  than  they  have  been  for  the 
light  social  song  which  embodies  its  sentiments  and 

*  Roughly  quoted  from  Lewes's  Goethe,  Book  i.,  Chap.  iii. 


BERANGER.  143 


pours  forth  its  spirit.  The  principle  on  which  such 
writings  are  composed  is  the  taking  some  incident, 
— not  voluntarily,  for  the  incident  doubtless  of  itself 
takes  a  hold  on  the  poet's  mind,  —  and  out  of  that 
incident  developing  all  which  there  is  in  it.  A  grave 
form  is  of  course  inconsistent  with  such  art.  The 
spirit  of  such  things  is  half  mirthful ;  a  very  profound 
meaning  is  rarely  to  be  expected :  but  little  incidents 
are  not  destitute  of  meaning,  and  a  delicate  touch 
will  delineate  it  in  words.  A  profound  excitement 
likewise  such  poems  cannot  produce;  they  do  not  ad- 
dress the  passions  or  the  intuitions,  the  heart  or  the 
soul :  but  a  gentle  pleasure,  half  sympathy,  half  amuse- 
ment, is  that  at  which  they  aim.  They  do  not  please 
us  equally  in. all  moods  of  mind:  sometimes  they  seem 
nothing  and  nonsense,  like  society  itself.  We  must 
not  be  too  active  or  too  inactive,  to  like  them ;  the 
tension  of  mind  must  not  be  too  great :  in  our  highest 
moods  the  littlenesses  of  life  are  petty ;  the  mind 
must  not  be  obtusely  passive  :  light  touches  will  not 
stimulate  a  sluggish  inaction.  This  dependence  on  the 
mood  of  mind  of  the  reader  makes  it  dangerous  to 
elucidate  this  sort  of  art  by  quotation;  Beranger  has, 
however,  the  following  :  — 

LAIDEUR  ET  BEAUTE.* 

"Sa  trop  grande  beaute  m'obsede ; 

C'est  un  masque  aisement  trompeur. 
Oui,  je  voudrais  qu'elle  fut  laide, 

Mais  laide,  laide  a  faire  peur. 
Belle  ainsi  faut-il  que  je  1'aime ! 

Dieu,  reprends  ce  don  6clatant; 
Je  le  demande  a  1'enfer  meme : 
Qu'elle  soit  laide  et  que  je  1'aime  autant. 

"A  cos  mots  m'apparait  le  diable; 

C'est  le  pere  de  la  laideur. 
'  Rendons-la,'  dit-il,  'effroyable 
De  tes  rivaux  trompons  1'ardeur. 

*See  Appendix. 


144  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


•Taime  assez  ces  metamorphoses. 
Ta  belle  ici  vient  en  chantant : 
Perles,  tombez ;  fanez-vous,  roses. 
La  voila  laide,  et  tu  Taimes  autant.' 

"  —  'Laide!  moi?'  dit-elle,  e'tonne'e. 

Elle  s'approche  d'un  miroir, 
Doiite  d'abord,  puis,  consternee, 
Tombe  en  un  morne  desespoir. 
'Pour  moi  seul  tu  jurais  de  vivre,' 
Lui  dis-je,  a  ses  pieds  me  jetant ; 
'  A  mon  seul  amour  il  te  livre. 
Plus  laide  encore,  je  t'aimerais  autant.' 

"Ses  yeux  e"teints  fondent  en  larmes, 

Alors  sa  douleur  m'attendrit : 
'Ah!  rendez,  rendez-lui  ses  charmes.' 
'  —  Soit ! '  repond  Satan,  qui  sourit. 
Ainsi  que  nait  la  fraiche  aurore, 

Sa  beaute  renait  a  1'instant. 
Elle  est,  je  crois,  plus  belle  encore ; 
Elle  est  plus  belle,  et  moi  je  Taime  autant. 

"Vite  au  miroir  elle  s'assure 

Qu'on  lui  rend  bien  tous  ses  appas; 
Des  pleurs  restent  sur  sa  figure, 

Qu'elle  essuie  en  grondant  tout  bas. 
Satan  s'envole,  et  la  cruelle 

Fuit  et  s'ecrie  en  me  quittant  : 
'  Jamais  fille  que  Dieu  fit  belle 
Ne  doit  aimer  qui  peut  r  aimer  autant. ' " 

And  this  is  even  a  more  characteristic  specimen  :  — 

LA  MOUCHE.* 

"Au  bruit  de  notre  gaite"  folle, 

Au  bruit  des  verres,  des  chansons, 
Quelle  mouche  murmure  et  vole, 

Et  revient  quand  nous  la  chassons?    (bis.) 
(Test  quelque  dieu,  je  le  soupconne, 

Qu'un  peu  de  bonheur  rend  jaloux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne,  )     ,, .  ^ 

Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous.    ) 


*  See  Appendix. 


BERAXGER. 


145 


"Transformee  en  mouche  hideuse. 

Amis,  oui,  c'est,  j'en  suis  certain, 
La  Kaison,  deite  grondeuse, 

Qu'irrite  un  si  joyeux  festin. 
L'orage  approche,  le  ciel  tonne ; 

Voila  ce  que  dit  son  courroux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 

Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

"C'est  la  Kaison  qui  vient  me  dire  : 

'A  ton  age  on  vit  en  reclus. 
Ne  bois  plus  tant,  cesse  de  rire, 

Cesse  d'aimer,  ne  chante  plus  ! ' 
Ainsi  son  beffroi  toujours  sonne 

Aux  lueurs  des  feux  les  plus  doux. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 

Qu'  elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

"  C'est  la  Raison  :  gare  a  Lisette  ! 

Son  dard  la  menace  toujours. 
Dieux  !  il  perce  la  collerette  : 

Le  san^  coule  !   accourez,  Amours  ! 
Amours,  poursuivez  la  felonne  ; 

Qu'elle  expire  enfln  sous  vos  coups. 
Ne  souffrons  point  qu'elle  bourdonne, 

Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous. 

"Victoire!  amis,  elle  se  noie 

Dans  Tai  que  Lise  a  verse. 
Victoire  !  et  qu'aux  mains  de  la  Joie 

Le  sceptre  enfin  soit  replace,     (bis.) 
Un  souffle  ebranle  sa  couronne ; 

Une  mouche  nous  troublait  tons. 
Ne  craignons  plus  qu'elle  bourdonne,    )     ,-,.  .. 

Qu'elle  bourdonne  autour  de  nous."  ) 

To  make  poetry  out  of  a  fly  is  a  difficult  operation. 
It  used  to  be  said  of  the  Lake  school  of  criticism,  in 
Mr.  Wordsworth's  early  and  more  rigid  days,  that 
there  was  no  such  term  as  " elegant"  in  its  nomen- 
clature. The  reason  is,  that  dealing  or  attempting  to 
deal  only  with  the  essential  aboriginal  principles  of  hu- 
man nature,  that  school  had  no  room  and  no  occasion 
Vor,.  I.  — 10 


14G  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

for  those  minor  contrivances  of  thought  and  language 
which  are  necessary  to  express  the  complex  accumula- 
tion of  little  feelings,  the  secondary  growth  of  human 
emotion.  The  underwood  of  nature  is  "elegant": 
the  bare  ascending  forest-tree  despises  what  is  so  triv- 
ial,—  it  is  grave  and  solemn.  To  such  verses,  on  the 
other  hand,  as  have  been  quoted,  "elegance"  is  essen- 
tial :  the  delicate  finish  of  fleeting  forms  is  the  only 
excellence  they  can  have. 

The  characteristic  deficiencies  of  French  literature 
have  no  room  to  show  themselves  in  this  class  of 
art.  "Though  France  herself  denies,"  says  a  recent 
writer,  "  yet  all  other  nations  with  one  voice  proclaim 
her  inferiority  to  her  rivals  in  poetry  and  romance, 
and  in  all  the  other  elevated  fields  of  fiction.  A 
French  Dante,  or  Michael  Angelo,  or  Cervantes,  or 
Murillo,  or  Goethe,  or  Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  we  at 
once  perceive  to  be  a  mere  anomaly ;  a  supposition 
which  may,  indeed,  be  proposed  in  terms,  but  which 
in  reality  is  inconceivable  and  impossible."  In  meta- 
physics, the  reason  seems  to  be  that  the  French  char- 
acter is  incapable  of  being  mastered  by  an  unseen 
idea  without  being  so  tyrannized  over  by  it  as  to  be 
incapable  of  artistic  development.  Such  a  character  as 
Robespierre's  may  explain  what  we  mean.  His  entire 
nature  was  taken  up  and  absorbed  in  certain  ideas ; 
he  had  almost  a  vanity  in  them ;  he  was  of  them, 
and  they  were  of  him.  But  they  appear  in  his  mind, 
in  his  speeches,  in  his  life,  in  their  driest  and  barest 
form ;  they  have  no  motion,  life,  or  roundness.  We 
are  obliged  to  use  many  metaphors  remotely  and 
with  difficulty  to  indicate  the  procedure  of  the  imagi- 
nation. In  one  of  these  metaphors  we  figure  an  idea 
of  imagination  as  a  living  thing,  a  kind  of  growing 
plant,  with  a  peculiar  form  and  ever  preserving  its 
identity,  but  absorbing  from  the  earth  and  air  all 
kindred,  suitable,  and  (so  to  say)  annexable  materials. 
In  a  mind  such  as  Robespierre's,  in  the  type  of  the 
fanatic  mind,  there  is  no  such  thing.  The  ideas  seem 


BERAXGER. 


a  kind  of  dry  hard  capsules,  never  growing,  never  en- 
larging, never  uniting.  Development  is  denied  them : 
they  cannot  expand,  or  ripen  or  mellow.  Dogma  is  a 
dry  hard  husk ;  poetry  has  the  soft  down  of  the  real 
fruit.  Ideas  seize  on  the  fanatic  mind  just  as  they 
do  on  the  poetical ;  they  have  the  same  imperious , 
ruling  power.  The  difference  is,  that  in  the  one  the 
impelling  force  is  immutable,  iron,  tyrannical ;  in  the 
other  the  rule  is  expansive,  growing,  free,  taking  up 
from  all  around  it  moment  by  moment  whatever  is 
fit,  as  in  the  political  world  a  great  constitution  arises 
through  centuries,  with  a  shape  that  does  not  vary,  but 
with  movement  for  its  essence  and  the  fluctuation  of 
elements  for  its  vitality.  A  thin  poor  mind  like  Ro- 
bespierre's seems  pressed  and  hampered  by  the  bony 
fingers  of  a  skeleton  hand ;  a  poet's  is  expanded  and 
warmed  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  impelled  by  a  pure 
life-blood  of  imagination.  The  French,  as  we  have 
said,  are  hardly  capable  of  this.  When  great  remote 
ideas  seize  upon  them  at  all,  they  become  fanatics. 
The  wild,  chimerical,  revolutionary,  mad  Frenchman 
has  the  stiffest  of  human  minds.  He  is  under  the 
law  of  his  creed;  he  has  not  attained  to  the  higher 
freedom  of  the  impelling  imagination.  The  prosing 
rhetoric  of  the  French  tragedy  shows  the  same  defect 
in  another  form :  the  ideas,  which  should  have  become 
living  realities,  remain  as  lean  abstractions;  the  char- 
acters are  speaking  officials,  jets  of  attenuated  ora- 
tory. But  exactly  on  this  very  account  the  French 
mind  has  a  genius  for  the  poetry  of  society.  Unable 
to  remove  itself  into  the  higher  region  of  imagined 
forms,  it  has  the  quickest  detective  insight  into  the 
exact  relation  of  surrounding  superficial  phenomena. 
There  are  two  ways  of  putting  it :  either,  being  fas- 
cinated by  the  present,  they  cannot  rise  to  what  is 
not  present;  or,  being  by  defect  of  nature  unable  to 
rise  to  what  is  not  present,  they  are  concentrated  and 
absorbed  in  that  which  is  so.  Of  course  there  ought 
not  to  be,  but  there  is,  a  world  of  bonbons,  of  salons, 


148  THE   TRAVELERS  IKS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

of  esprit.  Living  in  the  present,  they  have  the  po- 
etry of  the  present.  The  English  genius  is  just  the 
opposite.  Our  cumbrous  intellect  has  no  call  to 
light  artificialities.  We  do  not  excel  in  punctuated 
detail  or  nicely  squared  elaboration ;  it  puts  us  out  of 
patience  that  others  should.  A  respectable  English- 
man murmured  in  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  "I  wish  I  had 
a  hunch  of  mutton."  He  could  not  bear  the  second- 
ary niceties  with  which  he  was  surrounded.  Our  art 
has  the  same  principle.  We  excel  in  strong,  noble 
imagination,  in  solid  stuff.  Shakespeare  is  tough  work  : 
he  has  the  play  of  the  rising  energy,  the  buoyant 
freedom  of  the  unbounded  mind;  but  no  writer  is  so 
destitute  of  the  simplifying  dexterities  of  the  manipu- 
lating intellect. 

It  is  dangerous  for  a  foreigner  to  give  an  opinion 
on  minutice  of  style,  especially  on  points  affecting 
the  characteristic  excellences  of  national  style.  The 
French  language  is  always  neat ;  all  French  styles 
somehow  seem  good.  But  Beranger  appears  to  have 
a  peculiar  neatness.  He  tells  us  that  all  his  songs  are 
the  production  of  a  painful  effort.  If  so,  the  reader 
should  be  most  grateful :  he  suffers  no  pain.  The 
delicate  elaboration  of  the  writer  has  given  a  singu- 
lar currency  to  the  words.  Difficult  writing  is  rarely 
easy  reading;  it  can  never  be  so  when  the  labor 
is  spent  in  piecing  together  elements  not  joined  by  an 
insensible  touch  of  imagination.  The  highest  praise 
is  due  to  a  writer  whose  ideas  are  more  delicately 
connected  by  unconscious  genius  than  other  men's 
are,  and  yet  who  spends  labor  and  toil  in  giving 
the  production  a  yet  cunninger  finish,  a  still  smoother 
connection.  The  characteristic  aloofness  of  the  Gothic 
mind,  its  tendency  to  devote  itself  to  what  is  not 
present,  is  represented  in  composition  by  a  want  of 
care  in  the  pettinesses  of  style.  A  certain  clumsiness 
pervades  all  tongues  of  German  origin.  Instead  of 
the  language  having  been  sharpened  and  improved 
by  the  constant  keenness  of  attentive  minds,  it  has 


BERANGER.  149 


been  habitually  used  obtusely  and  crudely.  Light, 
loquacious  Gaul  has  for  ages  been  the  contrast.  If 
you  take  up  a  pen  just  used  by  a  good  writer,  for  a 
moment  you  seem  to  write  rather  well.  A  language 
long  employed  by  a  delicate  and  critical  society  is  a 
treasure  of  dexterous  felicities.  It  is  not,  according  to 
the  fine  expression  of  Mr.  Emerson,  "fossil  poetry":* 
it  is  crystallized  esprit. 

A  French  critic  has  praised  Beranger  for  having 
retained  the  refrain,  or 'burden, — "la  rime  de  Vair" 
as  he  calls  it.  Perhaps  music  is  more  necessary  as 
an  accompaniment  to  the  poetry  of  society  than  it  is 
to  any  other  poetry.  Without  a  sensuous  reminder, 
we  might  forget  that  it  was  poetry;  especially  in  a 
sparkling,  glittering,  attenuated  language,  we  might 
be  absorbed  as  in  the  defined  elegances  of  prose.  In 
half-trivial  compositions  we  easily  forget  the  little 
central  fancy.  The  music  prevents  this :  it  gives  one- 
ness to  the  parts,  pieces  together  the  shavings  of  the 
intellect,  makes  audible  the  flow  of  imagination. 

The  poetry  of  society  tends  to  the  poetry  of  love. 
All  poetry  tends  that  way.  By  some  very  subtle 
links,  which  no  metaphysician  has  skillfully  tracked, 
the  imagination,  even  in  effects  and  employments 
which  seem  remote,  is  singularly  so  connected.  One 
smiles  to  see  the  feeling  recur.  Half  the  poets  can 
scarcely  keep  away  from  it :  in  the  high  and  dry  epic 
you  may  see  the  poet  return  to  it.  And  perhaps  this 
is  not  unaccountable.  The  more  delicate  and  stealing 
the  sensuous  element,  the  more  the  mind  is  disposed 
to  brood  upon  it ;  the  more  we  dwell  on  it  in  stillness, 
the  more  it  influences  the  wandering,  hovering  faculty 
which  we  term  imagination.  The  first  constructive 
effort  of  imagination  is  beyond  the  limit  of  conscious- 
ness ;  the  faculty  works  unseen.  But  we  know  that 
it  works  in  a  certain  soft  leisure  only ;  and  this  in 
ordinary  minds  is  almost  confined  to,  in  the  highest 
is  most  commonly  accompanied  by,  the  subtlest  emo- 
tion of  reverie.  So  insinuating  is  that  feeling,  that  no 

*  Essay  on  "  The  Poet." 


150  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

poet  is  alive  to  all  its  influences;  so  potent  is  it,  that 
the  words  of  a  great  poet,  in  our  complex  modern 
time,  are  rarely  ever  free  from  its  traces.  The  phrase 
"stealing  calm,"  which  most  naturally  and  graphi- 
cally describes  the  state  of  soul  in  which  the  imagi- 
nation works,  quite  equally  expresses,  it  is  said,  the 
coming  in  and  continuance  of  the  not  uncommon 
emotion.  Passing,  however,  from  such  metaphysics, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  the  poetry  of 
society  will  tend  to  the  most  "romantic  part  of  society, 
—away  from  aunts  and  uncles,  antiquaries  and  wigs, 
to  younger  and  pleasanter  elements.  The  talk  of  soci- 
ety does  so ;  probably  its  literature  will  do  so  likewise. 
There  are  nevertheless  some  limiting  considerations, 
which  make  this  tendency  less  all-powerful  than  we 
might  expect  it  to  be.  In  the  first  place,  the  poetry  of 
society  cannot  deal  with  passion.  Its  light  touch  is  not 
competent  to  express  eager,  intense  emotion.  Rather, 
we  should  say,  the  essential  nature  of  the  poetry  of 
amusement  is  inconsistent  with  those  rugged,  firm, 
aboriginal  elements  which  passion  brings  to  the  sur- 
face. The  volcano  is  inconsistent  with  careless  talk ; 
you  cannot  comfortably  associate  with  lava.  Such 
songs  as  those  of  Burns  are  the  very  antithesis  to 
the  levity  of  society.  A  certain  explicitness  pervades 
them : — 

"Come,  let  me  take  thee  to  my  breast, 
And  pledge  we  ne'er  shall  sunder; 
And  I  shall  spurn  as  vilest  dust 
The  warld's  wealth  and  grandeur." 

There  is  a  story  of  his  having  addressed  a  lady  in 
society,  some  time  after  he  came  to  Edinburgh,  in 
this  direct  style,  and  being  offended  that  she  took 
notice  of  it.  The  verses  were  in  English,  and  were 
not  intended  to  mean  anything  particular,  only  to  be 
an  elegant  attention ;  but  you  might  as  well  ask  a 
young  lady  to  take  brandy  with  you  as  compliment 
her  in  this  intense  manner.  The  eager  peasant-poet 


BERAXGER.  151 


was  at  fault  in  the  polished  refinements  of  the  half- 
feeling  drawing-room.  Again,  the  poetry  of  society 
can  scarcely  deal  with  affection.  No  poetry,  except  in 
hints  and  for  moments,  perhaps  ever  can.  You  might 
as  well  tell  secrets  to  the  town-crier.  The  essence  of 
poetry  somehow  is  publicity.  It  is  very  odd  when  one 
reads  many  of  the  sentiments  which  are  expressed 
there,  —  the  brooding  thought,  the  delicate  feeling,  the 
high  conception.  What  is  the  use  of  telling  these  to 
the  mass  of  men  ?  Will  the  grocer  feel  them  ?  Will 
the  greasy  butcher  in  the  blue  coat  feel  them  ?  Are 
there  not  some  emphatic  remarks  by  Lord  Byron  on 
Mr.  Saunders  ("the  d — d  salt-fish  seller"  of  Venice),* 
who  could  not  appreciate  "Don  Juan"  ?  Nevertheless, 
for  some  subtle  reason  or  other,  poets  do  crave,  almost 
more  than  other  men,  the  public  approbation.  To  have 
a  work  of  art  in  your  imagination,  and  that  no  one 
else  should  know  of  it,  is  a  great  pain.  But  even 
this  craving  has  its  limits.  Art  can  only  deal  with 
the  universal.  Characters,  sentiments,  actions  must 
be  described  in  what  in  the  old  language  might  be 
called  their  conceptual  shape.  There  must  always  be 
an  idea  in  them.  If  one  compares  a  great  character 
in  fiction,  say  that  of  Hamlet,  with  a  well-known 
character  in  life,  we  are  struck  almost  at  once  by 
the  typical  and  representative  nature  of  the  former. 
We  seem  to  have  a  more  summai~g  conception  of  it, 
if  the  phrase  may  be  allowed,  than  we  have  of  the 
people  we  know  best  in  reality.  Indeed,  our  notion 
of  the  fictitious  character  rather  resembles  a  notion 
of  actual  persons  of  whom  we  know  a  little,  and  but 
a  little,  —  of  a  public  man,  suppose,  of  whom  from  his 
speeches  and  writings  we  know  something,  but  with 
whom  we  never  exchanged  a  word.  We  generalize 
a  few  traits ;  we  do  what  the  historian  will  have  to 
do  hereafter,  —  we  make  a  man,  so  to  speak,  resem- 
bling the  real  one,  but  more  defined,  more  simple  and 
comprehensible.  The  objects  on  which  affection  turns 
are  exactly  the  opposite.  In  their  essence  they  are 

*  Moore's  Byron,  Vol.  ii.,  page  187  (N.  Y.  Ed.  1855). 


152  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

individual,  peculiar.  Perhaps  they  become  known  un- 
der a  kind  of  confidence;  but  even  if  not,  nature  has 
hallowed  the  details  of  near  life  by  an  inevitable  se- 
crecy. You  cannot  expect  other  persons  to  feel  them ; 
you  cannot  tell  your  own  intellect  what  they  are.  An 
individuality  lurks  in  our  nature.  Each  soul  (as  the 
divines  speak)  clings  to  each  soul.  Poetry  is  impos- 
sible on  such  points  as  these :  they  seem  too  sacred, 
too  essential.  The  most  that  it  can  do  is,  by  hints 
and  little  marks  in  the  interstices  of  a  universalized 
delineation,  to  suggest  that  there  is  something  more 
than  what  is  stated,  and  more  inward  and  potent  than 
what  is  stated.  Affection  as  a  settled  subject  is  incom- 
patible with  art.  And  thus  the  poetry  of  society  is 
limited  on  its  romantic  side  in  two  ways :  first  by  the 
infinite,  intense  nature  of  passion,  which  forces  the 
voice  of  art  beyond  the  social  tone  ;  and  by  the  con- 
fidential, incomprehensible  nature  of  affection,  which 
will  not  bear  to  be  developed  for  the  public  by  the 
fancy  in  any  way. 

Being  so  bounded  within  the  ordinary  sphere  of  their 
art,  poets  of  this  world  have  contrived  or  found  a  sub- 
stitute. In  every  country  there  is  a  society  which  is 
110  society.  The  French,  which  is  the  most  worldly  of 
literatures,  has  devoted  itself  to  the  delineation  of  this 
outside  world.  There  is  no  form,  comic  or  serious, 
dramatic  or  lyrical,  in  which  the  subject  has  not  been 
treated.  The  burden  is  :  — 

"Lisette,  ma  Lisette, 

Tu  m'as  trompe  toujours; 
Mais  vive  la  grisette ! 
Je  veux,  Lisette, 

Boire  a  nos  amours."* 


*"Les  Infidelites  de  Lisette":  — 


"  Lisette,  my  Lisette, 

Though  you've  tricked  me  for  aye, 
Long  live  the  grisette  ! 
Here's  our  loves,  Lisette  — 

I  drink  to  your  way." 


BERANGER.  153 


There  is  obviously  no  need  of  affection  in  this  so- 
ciety. The  whole  plot  of  the  notorious  novel  "La 
Dame  aux  Camelias"  —and  a  very  remarkable  one  it 
is  —  is  founded  on  the  incongruity  of  real  feeling  with 
this  world,  and  the  singular  and  inappropriate  conse- 
quences which  result  if  by  any  rare  chance  it  does 
appear  there.  Passion  is  almost,  a  fortiori,  out  of  the 
question.  The  depths  of  human  nature  have  nothing 
to  do  with  this  life.  On  this  account  perhaps  it  is 
that  it  harmonizes  so  little  with  the  English  literature 
and  character.  An  Englishman  can  scarcely  live  on 
the  surface  :  his  passions  are  too  strong,  his  power 
of  finesse  too  little.  Accordingly,  since  Defoe,  who 
treated  the  subject  with  a  coarse  matter-of-factness, 
there  has  been  nothing  in  our  literature  of  this  kind, 
—  nothing,  at  least,  professedly  devoted  to  it.  How 
far  this  is  due  to  real  excellence,  how  far  to  the  bour- 
geois and  not  very  outspoken  temper  of  our  recent 
writers,  we  need  not  in  this  place  discuss.  There  is 
no  occasion  to  quote  in  this  country  the  early  poetry 
of  Berange'r,  at  least  not  the  sentimental  part  of  it. 
We  may  take,  in  preference,  one  of  his  poems  written 
in  old,  or  rather  in  middle  age  :  — 

ClNQUANTE  ANS.* 

"Pourquoi  ces  fleurs  ?  est-ce  ma  fete? 

Non  :  ce  bouquet  vient  ni'annoncer 
Qu'un  demi-siecle  sur  ma  tete 

Acheve  aujourd'hui  de  passer. 
Oh  !  combien  nos  jours  sont  rapides ! 

Oh  !  combien  j'ai  perdu  d'instants  ! 
Oh  !  combien  je  me  sens  de  rides  ! 

Helas !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

"A  cet  age,  tout  nous  e'chappe  ; 

Le  fruit  meurt  sur  1'arbre  jauni. 
Mais  a  ma  porte  quelqu'un  frappe ; 

N'ouvrons  point  :  mon  role  est  fini. 
C'est,  je  gage,  un  docteur  qui  jette 

Sa  carte,  ou  s'est  logo  lo  Temps. 


*  See  Appendix. 


154  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Jadis,  j'aurais  dit :  c'est  Lisette. 
Helas  I  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

"En  maux  cuisants  vieillesse  abonde : 

C'est  la  goutte  qui  nous  meurtrit ; 
La  ce"cit6,  prison  profonde ; 

La  surdite",  dont  chacun  rit. 
Puis  la  raison,  lampe  qui  baisse, 

N'a  plus  que  des  feux  tremblotants. 
Enfants,  honorez  la  vieillesse  ! 

Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans  1 

"  Ciel !  j'entends  la  Mort,  qui,  joyeuse, 

Arrive  en  se  frottant  les  mains. 
A  ma  porte  la  fossoyeuse 

Frappe  ;  adieu,  messieurs  les  humains ! 
En  bas,  guerre,  famine  et  peste ; 

En  haut,  plus  d'astres  e"clatants. 
Ouvrons,  tandis  que  Dieu  me  reste. 

Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans. 

"Mais  non :  c'est  vous  !  vous,  jeune  amie, 

Sceur  de  charite  des  amours ! 
Vous  tirez  mon  ame  endormie 

Du  cauchemar  des  mauvais  jours. 
Semant  les  roses  de  votre  age 

Partout,  comme  fait  le  printemps, 
Parfumez  les  reves  d'un  sage. 

Helas  !  helas  !  j'ai  cinquante  ans." 

This  is  the  last  scene  of  the  grisette,  of  whom  we 
read  in  so  many  songs  sparkling  with  youth  and  gayety. 

A  certain  intellectuality,  however,  pervades  Beran- 
ger's  love  songs.  You  seem  to  feel,  to  see,  not  merely 
the  emotion,  but  the  mind  in  the  background  viewing 
that  emotion.  You  are  conscious  of  a  considerateiiess 
qualifying  and  contrasting  with  the  effervescing  cham- 
pagne of  the  feelings  described.  Desire  is  rarefied  • 
sense  half  becomes  an  idea.  You  may  trace  a  similar 
metamorphosis  in  the  poetry  of  passion  itself.  If  we 
contrast  such  a  poem  as  Shelley's  "  Epipsychidion  " 
with  the  natural  language  of  common  passion,  we  see 


BERAXGER  155 


how  curiously  the  intellect  can  take  its  share  in  the 
dizziness  of  sense.  In  the  same  way,  in  the  lightest 
poems  of  Beranger  we  feel  that  it  may  be  infused, 
may  interpenetrate  the  most  buoyant  effervescence. 

Nothing  is  more  odd  than  to  contrast  the  luxurious 
and  voluptuous  nature  of  much  of  Beranger's  poetry 
with  the  circumstances  of  his  life.  He  never  in  all  his 
productive  time  had  more  than  £80  a  year ;  the  small- 
est party  of  pleasure  made  him  live,  he  tells  us  him- 
self, most  ascetically  for  a  week  :  so  far  from  leading 
the  life  of  a  Sybarite,  his  youth  was  one  of  anxiety  and 
privation.  A  more  worldly  poet  has  probably  never 
written,  but  no  poet  has  shown  in  life  so  philosophic 
an  estimate  of  this  world's  goods.  His  origin  is  very 
unaristocratic.  He  was  born  in  August,  1780,  at  the 
house  of  his  grandfather,  a  poor  old  tailor.  Of  his 
mother  we  hear  nothing.  His  father  was  a  specula- 
tive, sanguine  man,  who  never  succeeded.  His  princi- 
pal education  was  given  him  by  an  aunt,  who  taught 
him  to  read  and  to  write  and  perhaps  generally  in- 
cited his  mind.  His  school-teaching  tells  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  revolutionary  time.  By  way  of  primary 
school  for  the  town  of  Peronne,  a  patriotic  member  of 
the  National  Assembly  had  founded  an  institut  d'en- 
fants.  "It  offered,"  we  are  told,  "at  once  the  image 
of  a  club  and  that  of  a  camp :  the  boys  wore  a  mili- 
tary uniform  ;  at  every  public  event  they  named  depu- 
utations,  delivered  orations,  voted  addresses ;  letters 
were  written  to  the  citizen  Robespierre  and  the  citizen 
Tallien."  Naturally,  amid  such  great  affairs  there  was 
no  time  for  mere  grammar :  they  did  not  teach  Latin, 
nor  did  Beranger  ever  acquire  any  knowledge  of  that 
language  ;  and  he  may  be  said  to  be  destitute  of  what 
is  in  the  usual  sense  called  culture.  Accordingly,  it 
has  in  these  days  been  made  a  matter  of  wonder  by 
critics  whom  we  may  think  pedantic,  that  one  so  desti- 
tute should  be  able  to  produce  such  works.  But  a  far 
keener  judge  has  pronounced  the  contrary.  Goethe, 
who  certainly  did  not  undervalue  the  most  elaborate 


156  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  artful  cultivation,  at  once  pronounced  Beranger 
to  have  "  a  nature  most  happily  endowed,  firmly 
grounded  in  himself,  purely  developed  from  himself, 
and  quite  in  harmony  with  himself."*  In  fact,  as 
these  words  mean,  Beranger,  by  happiness  of  nature 
or  self-attention,  has  that  centrality  of  mind  which 
is  the  really  valuable  result  of  colleges  and  teaching. 
He  puts  things  together ;  he  refers  things  to  a  prin- 
ciple, —  rather,  they  group  themselves  in  his  intelli- 
gence insensibly  round  a  principle.  There  is  nothing 
distrait  in  his  genius  :  the  man  has  attained  to  be 
himself ;  a  cool  oneness,  a  poised  personality  pervades 
him.  "  The,  unlearned,"  it  has  been  said,  "judge  at 
random."  Beranger  is  not  unlearned  in  this  sense  : 
there  is  no  one  who  judges  more  simply,  smoothly, 
and  uniformly  ;  his  ideas  refer  to  an  exact  measure. 
He  has  mastered  what  comes  before  him  :  and  though 
doubtless  unacquainted  with  foreign  and  incongru- 
ous literatures,  he  has  mastered  his  own  literature, 
which  was  shaped  by  kindred  persons  and  has  been 
the  expression  of  analogous  natures ;  and  this  has 
helped  him  in  expressing  himself. 

In  the  same  way,  his  poor  youth  and  boyhood  have 
given  a  reality  to  his  productions.  He  seems  to  have 
had  this  in  mind  in  praising  "  the  practical  education 
which  I  have  received."  He  was  bred  a  printer;  and 
the  highest  post  he  attained  was  a  clerkship  at  the 
university,  worth,  as  has  been  said,  £80  per  annum. 
Accordingly,  he  has  everywhere  a  sympathy  with  the 
common  people,  an  unsought  familiarity  with  them 
and  their  life.  Sybarite  poetry  commonly  wants  this. 
The  aristocratic  nature  is  superficial :  it  relates  to  a 
life  protected  from  simple  wants,  depending  on  lux- 
urious artifices.  "Mamma,"  said  the  simple-minded 
nobleman,  "when  poor  people  have  no  bread,  why 
do  not  they  eat  buns  ?  they  are  much  better."  f  An 
over-perfumed  softness  pervades  the  poetry  of  soci- 
ety. You  see  this  in  the  songs  of  Moore,  the  best  of 

*  "Conversations  with  Eckermann  and  Soret,"  May  4,  1830. 

t  Usually  told  of  Marie  Antoinette,  in  re  the  starving  populace.  —  ED. 


BERANGER.  157 


the  sort  we  have  :  ail  is  beautiful,  soft,  half -sincere. 
There  is  a  little  falsetto  in  the  tone ;  everything  re- 
minds you  of  the  drawing-room  and  the  pianoforte  : 
and  not  only  so,  —  for  all  poetry  of  society  must  in  a 
measure  do  this, — but  it  seems  fit  for  no  other  scene. 
"Naturalness"  is  the  last  word  of  praise  that  would 
be  suitable  ;  in  the  scented  air  we  forget  that  there 
is  a  pave  and  a  multitude.  Perhaps  France  is,  of  all 
countries  which  have  ever  existed,  the  one  in  which 
we  might  seek  an  exception  from  this  luxurious  limit- 
ation :  a  certain  egalite  may  pervade  its  art  as  its 
society.  There  is  no  such  difference  as  with  us 
between  the  shoeblack  and  the  gentleman  ;  a  certain 
refinement  is  very  common,  an  extreme  refinement 
possibly  rare.  Beranger  was  able  to  write  his  poems 
in  poverty :  they  are  popular  with  the  poor. 

A  success  even  greater  than  wThat  we  have  de- 
scribed as  having  been  achieved  by  Beranger  in  the 
first  class  of  the  poems  of  society,  that  of  amusement, 
has  been  attained  by  him  in  the  second  class,  express- 
ive of  epicurean  speculation.  Perhaps  it  is  one  of 
his  characteristics  that  the  two  are  forever  running 
one  into  another :  there  is  animation  in  his  think- 
ing, there  is  meaning  in  his  gayety.  It  requires 
no  elaborate  explanation  to  make  evident  the  con- 
nection between  skepticism  and  luxuriousness  :  every 
one  thinks  of  the  Sadducee  as  in  cool  halls  and  soft 
robes ;  no  one  supposes  that  the  Sybarite  believes. 
Pain  not  only  purifies  the  mind,  but  deepens  the 
nature.  A  simple,  happy  life  is  animal ;  it  is  pleas- 
ant, and  it  perishes.  All  writers  who  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  explanation  of  this  world's  view  of 
itself  are  necessarily  in  a  certain  measure  Sadducees. 
The  world  is  Sadducee  itself :  it  cannot  be  anything 
else  without  recognizing  a  higher  creed,  a  more 
binding  law,  a  more  solemn  reality,  —  without  ceas- 
ing to  be  the  world.  Equanimity  is  incredulous  ;  im- 
partiality does  not  care  ;  an  indifferent  politeness  is 
skeptical.  Though  not  a  single  speculative  opinion  is 
expressed,  we  may  feel  this  in  "Roger  Bontemps": 


158        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

ROGER  BONTEMPS.* 

"Aux  gens  atrabilaires 

Pour  exemple  donne", 
En  un  temps  de  miseres 

Roger  Bontemps  est  ne\ 
Vivre  obscur  a  sa  guise, 

Narguer  les  mecontents : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  devise 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Du.chapeau  de  son  pere 

Coiffe  dans  les  grands  jours, 
De  roses  ou  de  lierre 

Le  rajeunir  toujours ; 
Mettre  un  manteau  de  bure, 

Vieil  ami  de  vingt  aus : 
Eh  gai !   c'est  la  parure 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Posseder  dans  sa  hutte 

Une  table,  un  vieux  lit, 
Des  cartes,  une  flute, 

Un  broc  que  Dieu  remplit, 
Un  portrait  de  mattresse, 

Un  coffre  et  rien  dedans : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  richesse 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Aux  enfans  de  la  ville 

Montrer  de  petits  jeux ; 
Etre  un  faiseur  habile 

De  contes  graveleux ; 
Ne  parler  que  de  danse 

Et  d'almanachs  chantants: 
Eh  gai !   c'est  la  science 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Faute  de  vin  d'elite, 

Sabler  ceux  du  canton  ; 
Preferer  Marguerite 
Aux  dames  du  grand  ton ; 


*See  Appendix. 


BERANGER.  159 


De.joie  et  de  tendresse 

Kemplir  tous  ses  instants : 
Eh  gai !  c'est  la  sagesse 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Dire  an  Ciel,  'Je  me  fie, 

Mon  Pere,  a  ta  bonte" ; 
De  ma  philosophic 

Pardonne  la  gaite ; 
Que  ma  saison  derniere 

Soit  encore  un  printemps ; ' 
Eh  gai !   c'est  la  priere 

Du  gros  Roger  Bontemps. 

"Vous,  pauvre  pleins  d'envie, 

Vous,  riches  desireux, 
Vous,  dont  le  char  devie 

Apres  un  cours  heureux ; 
Vous,  qui  perdez  peut-etre 

Des  titres  e"clatants, — 
Eh  gai !   prenez  pour  maitre 
Le  gros  Roger  Bontemps." 

At  the  same  time,  in  Beranger  the  skepticism  is  not  ex- 
treme. The  skeleton  is  not  paraded.  That  the  world 
is  a  passing  show,  a  painted  scene,  is  admitted;  you 
seem  to  know  that  it  is  all  acting  and  rouge  and  illu- 
sion :  still,  the  pleasantness  of  the  acting  is  dwelt  on, 
the  rouge  is  never  rubbed  off,  the  dream  runs  lightly 
and  easily.  No  nightmare  haunts  you,  you  have  no 
uneasy  sense  that  you  are  about  to  awaken.  Persons 
who  require  a  sense  of  reality  may  complain  :  pain 
is  perhaps  necessary  to  sharpen  their  nerves,  a  tough 
effort  to  harden  their  consciousness ;  but  if  you  pass 
by  this  objection  of  the  threshold,  if  you  admit  the 
possibility  of  a  superficial  and  fleeting  world,  you  will 
not  find  a  better  one  than  Beranger' s  world.  Suppose 
all  the  world  were  a  restaurant,  his  is  a  good  restau- 
rant ;  admit  that  life  is  an  effervescing  champagne, 
his  is  the  best  for  the  moment. 

In  several  respects  Beranger  contrasts  with  Hor- 
ace, the   poet   whom   in   general   he   most  resembles. 


1GO        THE  TRAVELERS  IXS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

The  song  of  "Roger  Bontemps"  suggests  one  of  the 
most  obvious  differences :  it  is  essentially  democratic. 
As  we  have  said  before,  Beranger  is  the  poet  of  the 
people:  he  himself  says,  "Le  peuple  c'est  ma  muse." 
Throughout  Horace's  writings,  however  much  he  may 
speak,  and  speak  justly,  of  the  simplicity  of  his  tastes, 
you  are  always  conscious  that  his  position  is  excep- 
tional. Everybody  cannot  be  the  friend  of  MaBce- 
nas ;  every  cheerful  man  of  the  world  cannot  see 
the  springs  of  the  great  world.  The  intellect  of  most 
self-indulgent  men  must  satisfy  itself  with  small  in- 
dulgences. Without  a  hard  ascent  you  can  rarely 
see  a  great  view.  Horace  had  the  almost  unequaled 
felicity  of  watching  the  characters  and  thoughts  and 
tendencies  of  the  governors  of  the  world,  the  nicest 
manipulation  of  the  most  ingenious  statesmen,  the 
inner  tastes  and  predilections  which  are  the  origin  of 
the  most  important  transactions ;  and  yet  had  the 
ease  and  pleasantness  of  the  common  and  effortless 
life.  So  rare  a  fortune  cannot  be  a  general  model ; 
the  gospel  of  epicureanism  must  not  ask  a  close  imi- 
tation of  one  who  had  such  very  special  advantages. 
Beranger  gives  the  acceptors  of  that  creed  a  com- 
moner type.  Out  of  nothing  but  the  most  ordinary 
advantages — the  garret,  the  almost  empty  purse,  the 
not  over-attired  grisette  —  he  has  given  them  a  model 
of  the  sparkling  and  quick  existence  for  which  their 
fancy  is  longing.  You  cannot  imagine  commoner  ma- 
terials. In  another  respect  Horace  and  Beranger  are 
remarkably  contrasted :  Beranger,  skeptical  and  indif- 
ferent as  he  is,  has  a  faith  in  and  zeal  for  liberty. 
It  seems  odd  that  he  should  care  for  that  sort  of 
thing ;  but  he  does  care  for  it.  Horace  probably  had 
a  little  personal  shame  attaching  to  such  ideas.  No 
regimental  officer  of  our  own  time  can  have  "  joined '' 
in  a  state  of  more  crass  ignorance  than  did  the  stout 
little  student  from  Athens  in  all  probability  join  the 
army  of  Brutus ;  the  legionaries  must  have  taken  the 
measure  of  him,  as  the  sergeants  of  our  living  friends. 


BERANGER.  161 


Anyhow,  he  was  not  partial  to  such  reflections  :  zeal 
for  political  institutions  is  quite  as  foreign  to  him  as 
any  other  zeal.  A  certain  hope  in  the  future  is  char- 
acteristic of  Beranger  :  — 

"Qui  decouvrit  un  nouveau  monde  ? 
Un  fou  qu'on  raillait  en  tout  lieu."* 

Modern  faith  colors  even  bystanding  skepticism. 
Though  probably  with  no  very  accurate  ideas  of  the 
nature  of  liberty,  Beranger  believes  that  it  is  a  great 
good',  and  that  France  will  have  it. 

The  point  in  which  Beranger  most  resembles  Hor- 
ace is  that  which  is  the  most  essential  in  the  charac- 
ters of  them  both,  —  their  geniality.  This  is  the  very 
essence  of  the  poems  of  society :  it  springs  in  the 
verses  of  amusement,  it  harmonizes  with  acquiescing 
sympathy  the  poems  of  indifference.  And  yet  few 
qualities  in  writing  are  so  rare.  A  certain  malevo- 
lence enters  into  literary  ink  :  the  point  of  the  pen 
pricks.  Pope  is  the  very  best  example  of  this.  With 
every  desire  to  imitate  Horace,  he  cannot  touch  any 
of  his  subjects,  or  any  kindred  subjects,  without  in- 
fusing a  bitter  ingredient.  It  is  not  given  to  the 
children  of  men  to  be  philosophers  without  envy. 
Lookers-on  can  hardly  bear  the  spectacle  of  the  great 
world.  If  you  watch  the  carriages  rolling  down  to 
the  House  of  Lords,  you  will  try  to  depreciate  the 
House  of  Lords.  Idleness  is  cynical.  Both  Beranger 
and  Horace  are  exceptions  to  this.  Both  enjoy  the 
roll  of  the  wheels  ;  both  love  the  glitter  of  the  car- 
riages ;  neither  is  angry  at  the  sun.  Each  knows  that 
he  is  as  happy  as  he  can  be,  that  he  is  all  that  he  can 
be,  in  his  contemplative  philosophy.  In  his  means  of 
expression  for  the  purpose  in  hand,  the  Frenchman 
has  the  advantage.  The  Latin  language  is  clumsy. 
Light  pleasure  was  an  exotic  in  the  Roman  world  ; 
the  terms  in  which  you  strive  to  describe  it  suit 


*"Who  brought  a  new  world  into  light? 

A  fool  derided  everywhere."  —  "Les  Fous." 
VOL.  I.  — 11 


1C2  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

rather  the  shrill  camp  and  droning  law  court.  In 
English,  as  we  hinted  just  now,  we  have  this  too : 
business  is  in  our  words ;  a  too  heavy  sense  clogs 
our  literature.  Even  in  a  writer  so  apt  as  Pope  at 
the  finesse  of  words,  you  feel  that  the  solid  Gothic 
roots  impede  him;  it  is  difficult  not  to  be  cumbrous,— 
the  horse  may  be  fleet  and  light,  but  the  wheels 
are  ponderous  and  the  road  goes  heavily.  Beranger 
certainly  has  not  this  difficulty  :  nobody  ever  denied 
that  a  Frenchman  could  be  light,  that  the  French 
language  was  adapted  for  levity. 

When  we  ascribed  an  absence  of  bitterness  and 
malevolence  to  Beranger,  we  were  far  from  meaning 
that  he  is  not  a  satirist :  every  light  writer  in  a  meas- 
ure must  be  so.  Mirth  is  the  imagery  of  society  ;  and 
mirth  must  make  fun  of  somebody.  The  nineteenth 
century  has  not  had  many  shrewder  critics  than  its 
easy-natured  poet.  Its  intense  dullness  particularly 
strikes  him.  He  dreads  the  dreariness  of  the  Acad- 
emy ;  pomposity  bores  him  ;  formalism  tires  him ;  he 
thinks  (and  may  well  think)  it  dreary  to  have  — 

"Pour  grands  hommes  des  journalistes, 
Pour  amusement  Topera."* 

But  skillful  as  is  the  mirth,  its  spirit  is  genial  and 
good-natured.  "You  have  been  laughing  at  me  con- 
stantly, Sydney,  for  the  last  seven  years,"  said  a 
friend  to  the  late  Canon  of  St.  Paul's,  "and  yet  in 
all  that  time  you  never  said  a  single  thing  to  me 
that  I  wished  unsaid,  "f  So  far  as  its  essential  fea- 
tures are  concerned,  the  nineteenth  century  may  say 
the  same  of  its  musical  satirist.  Perhaps,  however, 
the  Bourbons  might  a  little  object :  clever  people 
have  always  a  little  malice  against  the  stupid. 

There  is  no  more  striking  example  of  the  degree 
in  which  the  gospel  of  good  works  has  penetrated 
our  modern  society  than  that  Beranger  has  talked  of 


*"For  great  men,  journalists, 

For  amusement,  the  opera." 
t  Dudley ;   Lady  Holland's  Memoirs  of  Sydney  Smith,  Chap.  xi. 


BERANGER.  163 


"utilizing  his  talent."  The  epicurean  poet  consid- 
ers that  he  has  been  a  political  missionary.  Well 
njay  others  be  condemned  to  the  penal  servitude  of 
industry,  if  the  lightest  and  idlest  of  skillful  men 
boasts  of  being  subjected  to  it.  If  Beranger  thinks 
it  necessary  to  think  that  he  has  been  useful,  others 
may  well  think  so  too :  let  us  accept  the  heavy 
doctrine  of  hard  labor ;  there  is  no  other  way  to 
heave  off  the  rubbish  of  this  world.  The  mode  in 
which  Beranger  is  anxious  to  prove  that  he  made 
his  genius  of  use,  is  by  diffusing  a  taste  for  liberty 
and  expressing  an  enthusiasm  for  it ;  and  also,  as 
we  suppose,  by  quizzing  those  rulers  of  France  who 
have  not  shared  either  the  taste  or  the  enthusiasm. 
Although,  however,  such  may  be  the  idea  of  the 
poet  himself,  posterity  will  scarcely  confirm  it. 
Political  satire  is  the  most  ephemeral  kind  of  liter- 
ature. The  circumstances  to  which  it  applies  are 
local  and  temporary  ;  the  persons  to  whom  it  applies 
die.  A  very  few  months  will  make  unintelligible 
what  was  at  first  strikingly  plain.  Beranger  has 
illustrated  this  by  an  admission.  There  was  a  delay 
in  publishing  the  last  volume  of  his  poems,  many  of 
which  relate  to  the  years  or  months  immediately 
preceding  the  Revolution  of  1830 ;  the  delay  was  not 
long,  as  the  volume  appeared  in  the  first  month  of 
1833,  yet  he  says  that  many  of  the  songs  relate  to 
the  passing  occurrences  of  a  period  "deja  loin  de 
nous."  On  so  shifting  a  scene  as  that  of  French 
political  life,  the  jests  of  each  act  are  forgotten  with 
the  act  itself ;  the  eager  interest  of  each  moment 
withdraws  the  mind  from  thinking  of  or  dwelling  on 
anything  past.  And  in  all  countries,  administration 
is  ephemeral ;  what  relates  to  it  is  transitory.  Sat- 
ires on  its  detail  are  like  the  jests  of  a  public  office  • 
the  clerks  change,  oblivion  covers  their  peculiarities  ; 
the  point  of  the  joke  is  forgotten.  There  are  some 
considerable  exceptions  to  the  saying  that  foreign  lit- 
erary opinion  is  a  "contemporary  posterity";  but  in 


164,  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

relation  to  satires  on  transitory  transactions  it  is  ex- 
actly expressive.  No  Englishman  will  now  care  for 
many  of  Beranger's  songs  which  were  once  in  the 
mouths  of  all  his  countrymen,  which  colored  the  man- 
ners of  revolutions,  perhaps  influenced  their  course. 
The  fame  of  a  poet  may  have  a  reference  to  politics ; 
but  it  will  be  only  to  the  wider  species,  to  those  so- 
cial questions  which  never  die,  the  elements  of  that 
active  human  nature  which  is  the  same  age  after  age. 
Beranger  can  hardly  hope  for  this.  Even  the  songs 
which  relate  to  liberty  can  hardly  hope  for  this  immor- 
tality. They  have  the  vagueness  which  has  made 
French  aspirations  for  freedom  futile.  So  far  as  they 
express  distinct  feeling,  their  tendency  is  rather  anti- 
aristocratic  than  in  favor  of  simple  real  liberty ;  and 
an  objection  to  a  mere  rank,  though  a  potent,  is  nei- 
ther a  very  agreeable  nor  a  very  poetical  sentiment. 
Moreover,  when  the  love  of  liberty  is  to  be  imagi- 
natively expressed,  it  requires  to  an 'Englishman's  ear 
a  sound  bigger  and  more  trumpet-tongued  than  the 
voice  of  Beranger. 

On  a  deeper  view,  however,  an  attentive  student 
will  discover  a  great  deal  that  is  most  instructive  in 
the  political  career  of  the  not  very  business-like  poet. 
His  life  has  been  contemporaneous  with  the  course 
of  a  great  change;  and  throughout  it  the  view  which 
he  has  taken  of  the  current  events  is  that  which 
sensible  men  took  at  the  time,  and  which  a  sensible 
posterity  (and  these  events  will  from  their  size  at- 
tract attention  enough  to  insure  their  being  viewed 
sensibly)  is  likely  to  take.  Beranger  was  present  at 
the  taking  of  the  Bastille,  but  he  was  then  only  nine 
years  old;  the  accuracy  of  opinion  which  we  are 
claiming  for  him  did  not  commence  so  early.  His 
mature  judgment  begins  with  the  career  of  Napoleon ; 
and  no  one  of  the  thousands  who  have  written  on 
that  subject  has  viewed  it  perhaps  more  justly.  He 
had  no  love  for  the  despotism  of  the  Empire,  was 
alive  to  the  harshness  of  its  administration,  did  not 


BERANGER.  165 

care  too  much  for  its  glory,  must  have  felt  more 
than  once  the  social  exhaustion.  At  the  same  time, 
no  man  was  penetrated  more  profoundly,  no  literary 
man  half  so  profoundly,  with  the  popular  admiration 
for  the  genius  of  the  Empire.  His  own  Terse  has 
given  the  truest  and  most  lasting  expression  of  it: — 

LES  SOUVENIRS  DU  PEUPLE.* 

"On  parlera  de  sa  gloire 

Sous  le  chaumo  bien  longtemps. 
L'humble  toit,  dans  cinquante  ans, 
Ne  connaitra  plus  d'autre  liistoire. 
La  viendront  les  villageois, 

Dire  alors  a  quelque  vieille, 
'Par  des  recits  d'autrefois, 

Mere,  abregez  notre  veille. 
Bien,'  dit-on,  'qu'il  nous  ait  nui, 
Le  peuple  encor  le  revere, 

Oui,  le  revere. 

Parlez-nous  de  lui,  grand'mere ; 
Parlez-nous  de  lui.'     (bis.) 

*' '  Mes  enfants,  dans  ce  village, 
Suivi  de  rois,  il  passa. 
Voila  bien  longtemps  de  ca : 
Je  venais  d'entrer  en  manage. 
A  pied  grimpant  le  coteau 

Ou  pour  voir  je  m'etais  mise, 
H  avait  petit  chapeau 

Avec  redingote  grise. 
Pros  de  lui  je  me  troublai ; 
II  me  dit,  "  Bonjour,  ma  chere, 

Bonjour,  ma  chore."' — 
'  II  vous  a  parle",  grand'mere  I 
II  vous  a  parle  ! ' 

" '  L'an  d'apres,  moi,  pauvre  femme, 
A  Paris  etant  un  jour, 
Je  le  vis  avec  sa  cour : 
II  se  rendait  &  Notre-Dame. 
Tons  los  coaurs  6taient  contents; 
On  admirait  son  cortege. 


*See  Appendix. 


1G6  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Chacun  disait,  '•  Quel  beau  temps ! 

Le  ciel  toujours  le  protege." 
Son  sourire  e"tait  bicn  doux ; 
D'un  fils  Dieu  le  rendait  pere, 

Le  rendait  pore.' 

'Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous,  grand'mere! 
Quel  beau  jour  pour  vous  ! ' 

"'Mais,  quand  la  pauvre  Champagne 
Fut  en  proie  aux  6trangers, 
Lui,  bravant  tons  les  dangers, 
Semblait  seul  tenir  la  campagne. 
Un  soir,  tout  comme  aujourd'hui, 

J'entends  frapper  a  la  porte. 
J'ouvre.     Bon  Dieu !  c'e"tait  lui, 

Suivi  d'une  faible  escorte. 
II  s'asseoit  ou  me  voila, 

S'ecriant,  "Oh!  quelle  guerre! 

Oh  !  quelle  guerre !  " ' 
'  II  s'est  assis  la,  grand'mere ! 
II  s'est  assis  la!' 

'"J'ai  faim,"  dit-il:  et  bien  vite 
Je  sers  piquette  et  pain  bis; 
Puis  il  seche  ses  habits, 
Meme  a  donnir  le  feu  I'invite. 
Au  reveil,  voyant  mes  pleurs, 

II  me  dit,  "Bonne  espe>ance! 
Je  cours,  de  tous  ses  malheurs 

Sous  Paris  venger  la  France." 
II  part;  et  comme  un  tre"sor 
J'ai  depuis  garde  son  verre, 

Garde"  son  verre.'  — 
'Vous  1'avez  encor,  grand'mere! 
Vous  1'avez  encor!' 

'"Le  voici.     Mais  a  sa  perte 
Le  heros  fut  entraine. 
Lui,  qu'un  pape  a  couronne", 
Est  mort  dans  une  lie  deserte. 
Longtemps  aucun  ne  1'a  cru ; 
On  disait,  "II  va  paraitre: 
Par  mer  il  est  accouru ; 

L'etranger  va  voir  son  maitre." 


BERANGER.  167 


Quand  d'erreur  on  nous  tira, 
Ma  douleur  f ut  bien  amere ! 

Fut  bien  amere ! '  - 
'  Dieu  vous  benira,  grand'mere  ; 
Dieu  vous  benira.'"     (bis.) 

This  is  a  great  exception  to  the  transitoriness  of 
political  poetry.  Such  a  character  as  that  of  Napo- 
leon displayed  on  so  large  a  stage,  so  great  a  genius 
amid  such  scenery  of  action,  insures  an  immortal- 
ity. "The  page  of  universal  history"  which  he  was 
always  coveting,  he  has  attained ;  and  it  is  a  page 
which,  from  its  singularity  and  its  errors,  its  shame 
and  its  glory,  will  distract  the  attention  from  other 
pages.  No  one  who  has  ever  had  in  his  mind  the 
idea  of  Napoleon's  character  can  forget  it.  Nothing, 
too,  can  be  more  natural  than  that  the  French  should 
remember  it.  His  character  possessed  the  primary  im- 
agination, the  elementary  conceiving  power,  in  which 
they  are  deficient.  So  far  from  being  restricted  to 
the  poetry  of  society,  he  would  not  have  even  appre- 
ciated it.  A  certain  bareness  marks  his  mind;  his 
style  is  curt ;  the  imaginative  product  is  left  rude ; 
there  is  the  distinct  abstraction  of  the  military  dia- 
gram. The  tact  of  light  and  passing  talk,  the  de- 
tective imagination  which  is  akin  to  that  tact  and 
discovers  the  quick  essence  of  social  things,  he  never 
had.  In  speaking  of  his  power  over  popular  fancies, 
Beranger  has  called  him  "the  greatest  poet  of  mod- 
ern times."  No  genius  can  be  more  unlike  his  own, 
and  therefore  perhaps  it  is  that  he  admires  it  so 
much.  During  the  Hundred  Days,  Beranger  says  he 
was  never  under  the  illusion,  then  not  rare,  that  the 
Emperor  could  become  a  constitutional  monarch.  The 
lion,  he  felt,  would  not  change  his  skin.  After  the 
return  of  the  Bourbons,  he  says,  doubtless  with  truth, 
that  his  "instinct  du  peuple"  told  him  they  could 
never  ally  themselves  with  liberal  principles,  or  unite 
with  that  new  order  of  society  which,  though  dating 
from  the  Revolution,  had  acquired  in  five-and-twenty 


1G8  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

years  a  half-prescriptive  right.  They  and  their  fol- 
lowers came  in  to  take  possession,  and  it  was  impos- 
sible they  could  unite  with  what  was  in  possession. 
During  the  whole  reign  of  the  hereditary  Bourbon  dy- 
nasty, Beranger  was  in  opposition.  Representing  the 
natural  sentiments  of  the  new  Frenchman,  he  could 
not  bear  the  natural  tendency  of  the  ruling  power  to 
the  half -forgotten  practices  of  old  France.  The  legiti- 
mate Bourbons  were  by  their  position  the  chieftains 
of  the  party  advocating  their  right  by  birth ;  they 
could  not  be  the  kings  of  a  people :  and  the  poet  of 
the  people  -was  against  them.  After  the  genius  of 
Napoleon,  all  other  governing  minds  would  seem  tame 
and  contracted ;  and  Charles  X.  was  not  a  man  to 
diminish  the  inevitable  feeling.  Beranger  despised 
him.  As  the  poet  warred  with  the  weapons  of  poetry, 
the  government  retorted  with  the  penalties  of  state. 
He  was  turned  out  of  his  petty  clerkship,  he  was 
twice  imprisoned :  but  these  things  only  increased  his 
popularity;  and  a  firm  and  genial  mind,  so  far  from 
being  moved,  sang  songs  at  La  Force  itself.  "The 
Revolution  of  1830  was  willing  to  make"  his  "fortune": 

"  Je  1'ai  traitee,"  he  says,  "comme  une  puissance  qui  peut  avoir 
des  caprices  auxquels  il  faut  etre  en  mesure  de  resister.  Tous  ou 
presque  tous  mes  amis  ont  passe  au  ministere :  j'en  ai  meme  encore 
un  ou  deux  qui  restent  suspendus  a  ce  mat  de  cocagne.  Je  me 
plais  a  croire  qu'ils  y  sont  accroches  par  la  basque,  malgre  les 
efforts  qu'ils  font  pour  descendre.  J'aurais  done  pu  avoir  part  a 
la  distribution  des  emplois.  Malheureusement  je  n'ai  pas  1'amour 
des  sinecures,  et  tout  travail  oblige  m'est  devenu  insupportable,  hors 
peut-etre  encore  celui  d'expeditionnaire.  Des  medisants  ont  pre- 
tendu  que  je  faisais  de  la  vertu.  Fi  done !  je  faisais  de  la  paresse. 
Ce  defaut  m'a  tenu  lieu  de  bien  des  qualites ;  aussi  je  le  reconi- 
mande  a  beaucoup  de  nos  honnetes  gens.  II  expose  pourtant  a  de 
singuliers  reproches.  (Test  a  cette  paresse  si  douce,  que  des  cen- 
seurs  rigides  ont  attribue  1'eloignement  ou  je  me  suis  tenu  de  ceux 
de  mes  honorables  amis  qui  ont  eu  le  malheur  d'arriver  au  pou- 
voir.  Faisant  trop  d'honneur  a  ce  qu'ils  veulent  bien  appeler  ma 
bonne  tete,  et  oubliant  trop  combien  il  y  a  loin  du  simple  bon  sens 
a  la  science  des  grandes  affaires,  ces  censeurs  pretendent  que  mes 


BERANGER.  109 


conseils  eussent  eclaire  plus  (Tun  ministre.  A  les  en  croire,  tapi  der- 
riere  le  fauteuil  de  velours  de  nos  hommes  d'etat,  j'aurais  conjure 
les  vents,  dissipe  les  orages,  et  fait  nager  la  France  dans  un  ocean 
de  delices.  Nous  aurions  tous  de  la  liberte  a  revendre  ou  plutot 
a  donner,  car  nous  n'en  savons  pas  bien  encore  le  prix.  Eh ! 
messieurs  mes  deux  ou  trois  amis,  qui  prenez  un  chansonnier  pour 
un  magicien,  on  ne  vous  a  done  pas  dit  que  le  pouvoir  est  une 
cloche  qui  empeche  ceux  qui  la  mettent  en  branle  d'entendre  aucun 
autre  son?  Sans  doute  des  ministres  consultent  quelquefois  ceux 
qu'ils  ont  sous  la  main:  consulter  est  un  moyen  de  parler  de  soi 
qu'on  neglige  rarement.  Mais  il  ne  sufflrait  pas  de  consulter  de 
bonne  foi  des  gens  qui  conseilleraient  de  meme.  II  faudrait  encore 
executer :  ceci  est  la  part  du  caractere.  Les  intentions  les  plus 
pures.  le  patriotisme  le  plus  eclaire,  ne  le  donnent  pas  toujours. 
Qui  n'a  vu  de  hauts  personnages  quitter  un  donneur  d'avis  avec 
une  pensee  courageuse,  et,  1'instant  d'apres,  revenir  vers  lui,  de  je 
ne  sais  quel  lieu  de  fascination,  avec  1'embarras  d'un  dementi  donne 
aux  resolutions  les  plus  sages  ?  ' '  Oh ! '  disent-ils,  '  nous  n'y  serons 
plus  repris !  quelle  galere ! '  Le  plus  honteux  ajoute,  '  Je  voudrais 
bien  vous  voir  a  ma  place ! '  Quand  un  ministre  dit  cela,  soyez  sur 
qu'il  n'a  plus  la  tete  a  lui.  Cependant  il  en  est  un,  ruais  un  seul, 
qui,  sans  avoir  perdu  la  tete,  a  repete  souvent  ce  mot  de  la  meil- 
leure  foi  du  monde;  aussi  ne  l'adressait-il  jamais  a  un  ami."* 

The  statesman  alluded  to  in  the  last  paragraph  is 
Manuel,  his  intimate  friend,  from  whom  he  declares 
he  could  never  have  been  separated,  but  whose  death 
prevented  his  obtaining  political  honors.  Nobody  can 
read  the  above  passage  without  feeling  its  tone  of 
political  sense.  An  enthusiasm  for,  yet  half  distrust 
of,  the  Revolution  of  July  seems  as  sound  a  senti- 
ment as  could  be  looked  for  even  in  the  most  sensible 
contemporary.  What  he  has  thought  of  the  present 
dynasty  we  do  not  know.  He  probably  has  as  little 
concurred  in  the  silly  encomiums  of  its  mere  parti- 
sans as  in  the  wild  execrations  of  its  disappointed 
enemies.  His  opinion  could  not  have  been  either  that 
of  the  English  who  feted  Louis  Napoleon  in  1855,  or 
of  those  who  despised  him  in  1851.  The  political  for- 
tunes of  France  during  the  last  ten  years  must  have 


*  Preface  to  "Chansons."    See  Appendix. 


170  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

been  a  painful  scene  of  observation  to  one  who  re- 
membered the  taking  of  the  Bastile.  If  there  be  such 
a  thing  as  failure  in  the  world,  this  looks  like  it. 

Although  we  are  very  far  from  thinking  that 
Beranger's  claims  on  posterity  are  founded  on  his 
having  utilized  his  talent  in  favor  of  liberty,  it  is 
very  natural  that  he  should  think  (or  half  think) 
himself  that  it  is  so.  His  power  over  the  multi- 
tude must  have  given  him  great  pleasure :  it  is  some- 
thing to  be  able  to  write  mottoes  for  a  revolution,— 
to  write  words  for  people  to  use,  and  hear  people 
use  those  words.  The  same  sort  of  pleasure  which 
Horace  derived  from  his  nearness  to  the  center  of 
great  action,  Beranger  has  derived  from  the  power 
which  his  thorough  sympathy  with  his  countrymen 
has  given  him  over  them.  A  political  satire  may 
be  ephemeral  from  the  rapid  oblivion  of  its  circum- 
stances ;  but  it  is  not  unnatural  that  the  author, 
inevitably  proud  of  its  effect,  may  consider  it  of 
higher  worth  than  mere  verses  of  society. 

This  shrewd  sense  gives  a  solidity  to  the  verses 
of  Beranger  which  the  social  and  amusing  sort  of 
poetry  commonly  wants ;  but  nothing  can  redeem 
it  from  the  reproach  of  wanting  "back  thought."* 
This  is  inevitable  in  such  literature :  as  it  professes 
to  delineate  for  us  the  light  essence  of  a  fugitive 
world,  it  cannot  be  expected  to  dwell  on  those 
deep  and  eternal  principles  on  which  that  world  is 
based;  it  ignores  them  as  light  talk  ignores  them. 
The  most  opposite  thing  to  the  poetry  of  society  is 
the  poetry  of  inspiration.  There  exists,  of  course,  a 
kind  of  imagination  which  detects  the  secrets  of  the 
universe ;  which  fills  us  sometimes  with  dread,  some- 
times with  hope;  which  awakens  the  soul,  which 
makes  pure  the  feelings,  which  explains  nature, 
reveals  what  is  above  nature,  chastens  "  the  deep 
heart  of  man."f  Our  senses  teach  us  what  the  world 
is ;  our  intuitions,  where  it  is.  We  see  the  blue 
and  gold  of  the  world,  its  lively  amusements,  its 

*Derwent  Coleridge  on  Hartley.  t  Shelley,  "Alastor." 


BERANGER.  171 


gorgeous  if  superficial  splendor,  its  currents  of  men ; 
we  feel  its  light  spirits,  we  enjoy  its  happiness ;  we 
enjoy  it,  and  we  are  puzzled:  —  What  is  the  object 
of  all  this  ?  why  do  we  do  all  this  ?  what  is  the 
universe  for?  Such  a  book  as  Beranger's  suggests 
this  difficulty  in  its  strongest  form :  it  embodies  the 
essence  of  all  that  pleasure-loving,  pleasure-giving, 
unaccountable  world  in  which  men  spend  their  lives, 
—  which  they  are  compelled  to  live  in,  but  which 
the  moment  you  get  out  of  it  seems  so  odd  that 
you  can  hardly  believe  it  is  real.  On  this  account, 
as  we  were  saying  before,  there  is  no  book  the  im- 
pression of  which  varies  so  much  in  different  moods 
of  mind.  Sometimes  no  reading  is  so  pleasant ;  at 
others  you  half  despise  and  half  hate  the  idea  of 
it,  —  it  seems  to  sum  up  and  make  clear  the  little- 
ness of  your  own  nature.  Few  can  bear  the  theory 
of  their  amusements :  it  is  essential  to  the  pride  of 
man  to  believe  that  he  is  industrious.  We  are  irri- 
tated at  literary  laughter,  and  wroth  at  printed  mirth. 
We  turn  angrily  away  to  that  higher  poetry  which 
gives  the  outline  within  which  all  these  light  colors 
are  painted.  From  the  capital  of  levity  and  its 
self-amusing  crowds,  from  the  elastic  vaudeville  and 
the  grinning  actors,  from  chansons  and  cafes,  we 
turn  away  to  the  solemn  in  nature,  to  the  blue  over- 
arching sky :  the  one  remains,  the  many  pass ;  *  no 
number  of  seasons  impairs  the  bloom  of  those  hues,— 
they  are  as  soft  to-morrow  as  to-day.  The  immeas- 
urable depth  folds  us  in.  "Eternity,"  as  the  original 
thinker  said,  "is  everlasting."  We  breathe  a  deep 
breath.  And  perhaps  we  have  higher  moments  :  we 
comprehend  the  "unintelligible  world"  f;  "we  see 
into  the  life  of  things  "  \  ;  we  fancy  we  know  whence 
we  come  and  whither  we  go  ;  words  we  have  repeated 
for  years  have  a  meaning  for  the  first  time;  texts  of 
old  Scripture  seem  to  apply  to  us.  .  .  .  And  —  and  — 
Mr.  Thackeray  would  say,  You  come  back  into  the 

*  Shelley,  "Adonais,"  Hi.     t  Wordswortb,  "Tintern  Abbey."    t  Ibid. 


172       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

town,   and    order   dinner   at    a    restaurant,   and    read 
Beranger  once  more. 

And  though  this  is  true ;  though  the  author  of 
"Le  Dieu  des  Bonnes  Gens"  has  certainly  no  claim 
to  be  called  a  profound  divine;  though  we  do  not 
find  in  him  any  proper  expression,  scarcely  any  mo- 
mentary recognition,  of  those  intuitions  which  explain 
in  a  measure  the  scheme  and  idea  of  things,  and 
form  the  "back  thought"  and  inner  structure  of  such 
minds  as  ours,  —  his  sense  and  sympathy  with  the 
people  enable  him,  perhaps  compel  him,  to  delineate 
those  essential  conditions  which  constitute  the  struc- 
ture of  exterior  life,  and  determine  with  inevitable 
certainty  the  common  life  of  common  persons.  He 
has  no  call  to  deal  with  heaven  or  the  universe,  but 
he  knows  the  earth ;  he  is  restricted  to  the  boundaries 
of  time,  but  he  understands  time.  He  has  extended 
his  delineations  beyond  what  in  this  country  would 
be  considered  correct :  "Les  Cinq  Etages"  can  scarcely 
be  quoted  here,  but  a  perhaps  higher  example  of  the 
same  kind  of  art  may  be  so :  — 

LE  VIETJX  VAGABOND.* 
"Dans  ce  foss6  cessons  de  vivre; 
Je  finis  vieux,  infirme,  et  las. 
Les  passants  vont  dire,  '  II  est  ivre ' : 

Tant  mieux !  ils  ne  me  plaindront  pas. 
J'en  vois  qui  detournent  la  tete ; 

D'autres  me  jettent  quelques  sous. 
Courez  vite,  allez  a  la  fete: 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  puis  mourir  sans  vous. 

"Oui,  je  meurs  ici  de  vieillesse, 

Parce  qu'on  ne  meurt  pas  de  faim. 
J'esperais  voir  de  ma  detresse 

L'hopital  adoucir  la  fin ; 
Mais  tout  est  plein  dans  chaque  hospice, 

Tant  le  peuple  est  infortune. 

La  rue,  helas !   fut  ma  nourrice : 

Vieux  vagabond,  mourons  ou  je  suis  ne. 


*See  Appendix. 


BER  ANGER.  173 


"Aux  artisans,  dans  mon  jeune  age, 

J'ai  dit,   '  Qu'on  m'enseigne  un  metier.'  — 
'  Va,  nous  n'avons  pas  trop  d'ouvrage,' 

Repondaient-ils  :  '  va  mendier.' 
Riches,  qui  me  disiez,   'Travaille,' 
J'eus  bien  des  os  de  vos  repas ; 
J'ai  bien  dormi  sur  votre  paille : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  ne  vous  maudis  pas. 

"  J'aurais  pu  voler,  moi,  pauvre  homme  ; 

Mais  non  :  mieux  vaut  tendre  la  main. 
An  plus,  j'ai  derobe  la  pomme 

Qui  murit  au  bord  du  chemin. 
Vingt  fois  pourtant  on  me  verrouille 

Dans  les  cachots,  de  par  le  roi. 
De  mon  seul  bien  on  me  depouille  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  le  soleil  est  a  moi. 

"Le  pauvre  a-t-il  une  patrie? 

Que  me  font  vos  vins  et  vos  bles, 
Votre  gloire  et  votre  Industrie, 

Et  vos  orateurs  assembles  ? 
Dans  vos  murs  ouverts  a  ses  armes 

Lorsque  l'et  ranger  s'engraissait, 
Comme  un  sot  j'ai  vers6  des  larmes  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  sa  main  me  nourrissait. 

"Comme  un  insecte  fait  pour  nuire, 

Hommes,  que  ne  m'ecrasiez-vous  ? 
Ah  !  plutot  vous  deviez  m'instruire 

A  travailler  au  bien  de  tous. 
Mis  a  1'abri  du  vent  contraire, 

Le  ver  fut  devenu  fourmi  ; 
Je  vous  aurais  cheris  en  frere  : 
Vieux  vagabond,  je  meurs  votre  ennemi." 

Pathos  in  such  a  song  as  this  enters  into  poetry  :  we 
sympathize  with  the  essential  lot  of  man.  Poems 
of  this  kind  are  doubtless  rare  in  Beranger, —  his 
commoner  style  is  lighter  and  more  cheerful  ;  but  no 
poet  who  has  painted  so  well  the  light  effervescence 
of  light  society  can,  when  he  likes,  paint  so  well  the 


174  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

solid,  stubborn  forms  with  which  it  is  encompassed. 
The  genial,  firm  sense  of  a  large  mind  sees  and  com- 
prehends all  of  human  life  which  lies  within  the 
sphere  of  sense.  He  is  an  epicurean,  as  all  merely 
sensible  men  by  inevitable  consequence  are,  and  as 
an  epicurean  he  prefers  to  deal  with  the  superficial 
and  gay  forms  of  life ;  but  he  can  deal  with  others 
when  he  chooses  to  be  serious.  Indeed,  there  is  no 
melancholy  like  the  melancholy  of  the  epicurean. 
He  is  alive  to  the  fixed  conditions  of  earth,  but  not 
to  that  which  is  above  earth.  He  muses  on  the  tem- 
porary, as  such ;  he  admits  the  skeleton,  but  not  the 
soul.  It  is  wonderful  that  Beranger  is  so  cheerful  as 
he  is. 

We  may  conclude  as  we  began.  In  all  his 
works  —  in  lyrics  of  levity,  of  politics,  of  worldly 
reflection  —  Beranger,  if  he  had  not  a  single  object, 
has  attained  a  uniform  result.  He  has  given  us  an 
idea  of  the  essential  French  character,  such  as  we 
fancy  it  must  be,  but  can  never  for  ourselves  hope 
to  see  that  it  is.  We  understand  the  nice  tact,  the 
quick  intelligence,  the  gay  precision ;  the  essence  of 
the  drama  we  know,  the  spirit  of  what  we  have 
seen.  We  know  his  feeling  :  — 

"J'aime  qu'un  Russe  soit  Russe, 

Et  qu'un  Anglais  soit  Anglais ; 
Si  Ton  est  Prussien  en  Prusse, 
En  France  soyons  Fran§ais."* 

He  has  acted  accordingly  :  he  has  delineated  to  us 
the  essential  Frenchman. 


*  "  I  love  to  have  Russians  be  Russians, 

And  Englishmen  English  all  through ; 
If  in  Prussia  the  people  are  Prussians, 
In  France  let's  be  Frenchmen  too." 

—  "Le  Bon  Franfais." 


ME.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS* 

I  (1862.) 

No  ONE  can  be  more  rigid  than  we  are  in  our  rules 
as  to  the  publication  of  ' '  remains  "  and  memoirs.  It  is 
very  natural  that  the  friends  of  a  cultivated  man  who 
seemed  about  to  do  something,  but  who  died  before 
he  did  it,  should  desire  to  publish  to  the  world  the 
grounds  of  their  faith,  and  the  little  symptoms  of  his 
immature  excellence.  But  though  they  act  very  nat- 
urally, they  act  very  unwisely.  In  the  present  state 
of  the  world  there  are  too  many  half -excellent  people : 
there  is  a  superfluity  of  persons  who  have  all  the 
knowledge,  all  the  culture,  all  the  requisite  taste, — 
all  the  tools,  in  short,  of  achievement,  but  who  are 
deficient  in  the  latent  impulse  and  secret  vigor  which 
alone  can  turn  such  instruments  to  account.  They 
have  all  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of  future  suc- 
cess :  they  want  the  invisible  spirit,  which  can  only 
be  demonstrated  by  trial  and  victory.  Nothing,  there- 
fore, is  more  tedious  or  more  worthless  than  the  post- 
humous delineation  of  the  possible  successes  of  one 
who  did  not  succeed.  The  dreadful  remains  of  nice 
young  persons  which  abound  among  us  prove  almost 
nothing  as  to  the  future  fate  of  those  persons,  if  they 
had  survived.  We  can  only  tell  that  any  one  is  a 
man  of  genius  by  his  having  produced  some  work 
of  genius.  Young  men  must  practice  themselves  in 
youthful  essays ;  and  to  some  of  their  friends  these 
may  seem  works  not  only  of  fair  promise,  but  of 
achieved  excellence.  The  cold  world  of  critics  and 


*  Poems.    By  Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  sometime  Fellow  of  Oriel  College, 
Oxford.     With  a  Memoir.     Macmillan. 

(175) 


1TG        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

readers  will  not,  however,  think  so :  that  world  will 
understand  the  distinction  between  promise  and  per- 
formance, and  sees  that  these  laudable  juvenilia  differ 
from  good  books  as  much  as  legitimate  bills  of  ex- 
change differ  from  actual  cash. 

If  we  did  not  believe  that  Mr.  dough's  poems,  or 
at  least  several  of  them,  had  real  merit,  not  as  prom- 
issory germs,  but  as  completed  performances,  it  would 
not  seem  to  us  to  be  within  our  province  to  notice 
them.  Nor,  if  Mr.  Clough  were  now  living  among  us, 
would  he  wish  us  to  do  so.  The  marked  peculiarity, 
and  so  to  say  the  flavor  of  his  mind,  was  a  sort  of 
truthful  skepticism,  which  made  him  anxious  never 
to  overstate  his  own  assurance  of  anything ;  which 
disinclined  him  to  overrate  the  doings  of  his  friends; 
and  which  absolutely  compelled  him  to  underrate  his 
own  past  writings,  as  well  as  his  capability  for  future 
literary  success.  He  could  not  have  borne  to  have 
his  poems  reviewed  with  "nice  remarks"  and  senti- 
mental epithets  of  insincere  praise.  He  was  equal  to 
his  precept :  — 

"Where  are  the  great,  whom  thou  wouldst  wish  to  praise  thee? 
Where  are  the  pure,  whom  thou  wouldst  choose  to  love  thee? 
Where  are  the  brave,  to  stand  supreme  above  thee, 
Whose  high  commands  would  cheer,  whose  chiding  raise  thee? 
Seek,  seeker,  in  thyself ;   submit  to  find 
In  the  stones,  bread,  and  life  in  the  blank  mind." 

To  offer  petty  praise  and  posthumous  compliments  to 
a  stoic  of  this  temper  is  like  buying  sugar-plums  for 
St.  Simeon  Stylites.  We  venture  to  write  an  article 
on  Mr.  Clough,  because  we  believe  that  his  poems  de- 
pict an  intellect  in  a  state  which  is  always  natural 
"to  such  a  being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the  pres- 
ent,"* which  is  peculiarly  natural  to  us  just  now  ;  and 
because  we  believe  that  many  of  these  poems  are 
very  remarkable  for  true  vigor  and  artistic  excellence, 
although  they  certainly  have  defects  and  shortcom- 
ings, which  would  have  been  lessened,  if  not  removed, 
if  their  author  had  lived  longer  and  had  written  more. 

*See  note  to  Vol.  ii.,  page  109. 


MR.    CLOUGH'S   POEMS.  177 

5 

In  a  certain  sense  there  are  two  great  opinions 
about  everything.  There  are  two  about  the  universe 
itself.  The  world  as  we  know  it  is  this  :  there  is  a 
vast,  visible,  indisputable  sphere,  of  which  we  never 
lose  the  consciousness,  of  which  no  one  seriously 
denies  the  existence,  about  the  most  important  part 
of  which  most  people  agree  tolerably  and  fairly.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  the  invisible  world,  about 
which  men  are  not  agreed  at  all :  which  all  but  the 
faintest  minority  admit  to  exist  somehow  and  some- 
where, but  as  to  the  nature  or  locality  of  which  there 
is  no  efficient  popular  demonstration,  no  such  compul- 
sory argument  as  "will  force  the  unwilling  conviction 
of  any  one  disposed  to  denial.  As  our  minds  rise, 
as  our  knowledge  enlarges,  as  our  wisdom  grows, 
as  our  instincts  deepen,  our  conviction  of  this  invis- 
ible world  is  daily  strengthened,  and  our  estimate  of 
its  nature  is  continually  improved.  But  —  and  this  is 
the  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  whole  subject— 
the  more  we  improve  ;  the  higher  we  rise ;  the  nobler 
we  conceive  the  unseen  world  which  is  in  us  and 
about  us,  in  which  we  live  and  move,  —  the  more  un- 
like that  world  becomes  to  the  world  which  we  do 
see.  The  divinities  of  Olympus  were,  in  a  very  plain 
and  intelligible  sense,  part  and  parcel  of  this  earth  : 
they  were  better  specimens  than  could  be  found 
below,  but  they  belonged  to  extant  species ;  they  were 
better  editions  of  visible  existences ;  they  were  like 
the  heroines  whom  young  men  imagine  after  seeing 
the  young  ladies  of  their  vicinity, —  they  were  better 
and  handsomer,  but  they  were  of  the  same  sort ;  they 
had  never  been  seen,  but  they  might  have  been  seen 
any  day.  So  too  of  the  God  with  whom  the  Patriarch 
wrestled :  he  might  have  been  wrestled  with,  even  if 
he  was  not ;  he  was  that  sort  of  person.  If  we  con- 
trast with  these  the  God  of  whom  Christ  speaks,— 
the  God  who  has  not  been  seen  at  any  time,  whom  no 
man  hath  seen  or  can  see,  who  is  infinite  in  nature, 
whose  ways  are  past  finding  out, — the  transition  is 
VOL.  I.  — 12 


178  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

palpable.  We  have  passed  from  gods, — from  an  in- 
visible world  which  is  similar  to,  which  is  a  natural 
appendix  to,  the  world  in  which  we  live, — and  we 
have  come  to  believe  in  an  invisible  world  which  is 
altogether  unlike  that  which  we  see ;  which  is  cer- 
tainly not  opposed  to  our  experience,  but  is  altogether 
beyond  and  unlike  our  experience ;  which  belongs 
to  another  set  of  things  altogether;  which  is,  as  we 
speak,  transcendental.  The  "possible"  of  early  barba- 
rism is  like  .the  reality  of  early  barbarism;  the  "may- 
be," the  "great  perhaps,"  of  late  civilization  is  most 
unlike  the  earth,  whether  barbaric  or  civilized. 

Two  opinions  as  to  the  universe  naturally  result 
from  this  fundamental  contrast.  There  are  plenty 
of  minds  like  that  of  Voltaire,  who  have  simply  no 
sense  or  perception  of  the  invisible  world  whatever, 
who  have  no  ear  for  religion,  who  are  in  the  techni- 
cal sense  unconverted,  whom  no  conceivable  process 
could  convert  without  altering  what  to  bystanders 
and  ordinary  observers  is  their  identity.  They  are,  as 
a  rule,  acute,  sensible,  discerning,  and  humane ;  but 
the  first  observation  which  the  most  ordinary  person 
would  make  as  to  them  is,  that  they  are  "limited." 
They  understand  palpable  existence ;  they  elaborate 
it,  and  beautify  and  improve  it :  but  an  admiring  by- 
stander, who  can  do  none  of  these  things,  who  can 
beautify  nothing,  who  if  he  tried  would  only  make 
what  is  ugly  uglier,  is  conscious  of  a  latent  superi- 
ority, which  he  can  hardly  help  connecting  with  his 
apparent  inferiority.  We  cannot  write  Voltaire's  sen- 
tences :  we  cannot  make  things  as  clear  as  he  made 
them  :  but  we  do  not  much  care  for  our  deficiency. 
Perhaps  we  think,  "Things  ought  not  to  be  so  plain 
as  all  that."  There  is  a  hidden,  secret,  unknown  side 
to  this  universe,  which  these  picturesque  painters  of 
the  visible,  these  many-handed  manipulators  of  the 
palpable,  are  not  aware  of,  which  would  spoil  their 
dexterity  if  it  were  displayed  to  them.  Sleep-walkers 
can  tread  safely  on  the  very  edge  of  a  precipice;  but 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  179 

those  who  see  cannot.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are 
those  whose  minds  have  not  only  been  converted,  but 
in  some  sense  inverted.  They  are  so  occupied  with 
the  invisible  world  as  to  be  absorbed  in  it  entirely; 
they  have  no  true  conception  of  that  which  stands 
plainly  before  them, — they  never  look  coolly  at  it, 
and  are  cross  with  those  who  do ;  they  are  wrapt  up 
in  their  own  faith  as  to  an  unseen  existence ;  they 
rush  upon  mankind  with  "Ah,  there  it  is!  there  it 
is! — don't  you  see  it?"  and  so  incur  the  ridicule  of 
an  age. 

The  best  of  us  try  to  avoid  both  fates.  We  strive, 
more  or  less,  to  "make  the  best,  of  both  worlds." 
We  know  that  the  invisible  world  cannot  be  duly 
discerned,  or  perfectly  appreciated.  We  know  that 
we  see  as  in  a  glass  darkly ;  but  still  we  look  on  the 
glass.  We  frame  to  ourselves  some  image  which  we 
know  to  be  incomplete,  which  probably  is  in  part 
untrue,  which  we  try  to  improve  day  by  day,  of 
which  we  do  not  deny  the  defects, —  but  which  never- 
theless is  our  "all";  which  we  hope,  when  the  ac- 
counts are  taken,  may  be  found  not  utterly  unlike 
the  unknown  reality.  This  is,  as  it  seems,  the  best 
religion  for  finite  beings,  living,  if  we  may  say  so, 
on  the  very  edge  of  two  dissimilar  worlds ;  on  the 
very  line  on  which  the  infinite,  unfathomable  sea 
surges  up,  and  just  where  the  queer  little  bay  of  this 
world  ends.  We  count  the  pebbles  on  the  shore,  and 
image  to  ourselves  as  best  we  may  the  secrets  of  the 
great  deep. 

There  are,  however,  some  minds  (and  of  these 
Mr.  Clough's  was  one)  which  will  not  accept  what 
appears  to  be  an  intellectual  destiny.  They  struggle 
against  the  limitations  of  mortality,  and  will  not  con- 
descend to  use  the  natural  and  needful  aids  of  human 
thought.  They  will  not  make  their  image.  They 
struggle  after  an  "  actual  abstract."  They  feel,  and. 
they  rightly  feel,  that  every  image,  every  translation, 
every  mode  of  conception  by  which  the  human  mind 


180        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

tries  to  place  before  itself  the  divine  mind  is  imper- 
fect, halting,  changing.  They  feel  from  their  own 
experience  that  there  is  no  one  such  mode  of  repre- 
sentation which  will  suit  their  own  minds  at  all 
times,  and  they  smile  with  bitterness  at  the  notion 
that  they  could  contrive  an  image  which  will  suit  all 
other  minds.  They  could  not  become  fanatics  or  mis- 
sionaries, or  even  common  preachers,  without  forfeiting 
their  natural  dignity  and  foregoing  their  very  essence. 
To  cry  in  the  streets,  to  uplift  their  voice  in  Israel, 
to  be  "pained  with  hot  thoughts,"  to  be  "preachers 
of  a  dream,"  would  reverse  their  whole  cast  of  mind. 
It  would  metamorphose  them  into  something  which 
omits  every  striking  trait  for  which  they  were  re- 
marked, and  which  contains  every  trait  for  which  they 
were  not  remarked.  On  the  other  hand,  it  would  be 
quite  as  opposite  to  their  whole  nature  to  become  fol- 
lowers of  Voltaire.  No  one  knows  more  certainly 
and  feels  more  surely  that  there  is  an  invisible  world 
than  those  very  persons  who  decline  to  make  an  image 
or  representation  of  it,  who  shrink  with  a  nervous 
horror  from  every  such  attempt  when  it  is  made  by 
any  other.  All  this  inevitably  leads  to  what  common, 
practical  people  term  a  "curious"  sort  of  mind.  You 
do  not  know  how  to  describe  these  "universal  nega- 
tives," as  they  seem  to  be.  They  will  not  fall  into 
place  in  the  ordinary  intellectual  world  anyhow.  If 
you  offer  them  any  known  religion,  they  "won't 
have  that "  ;  if  you  offer  them  no  religion,  they  will 
not  have  that  either;  if  you  ask  them  to  accept  a 
new  and  as  yet  unrecognized  religion,  they  altogether 
refuse  to  do  so.  They  seem  not  only  to  believe  in 
an  "unknown  God,"  but  in  a  God  whom  no  man  can 
ever  know.  Mr.  Clough  has  expressed,  in  a  sort  of 
lyric,  what  may  be  called  their  essential  religion  :  — 

"O  Thou,  whose  image  in  the  shrine 
Of  human  spirits  dwells  divine ! 
"Which  from  that  precinct  once  conveyed, 
To  be  to  outer  day  displayed, 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  181 

Doth  vanish,  part,  and  leave  behind 
Mere  blank  and  void  of  empty  mind, 
Which  willful  fancy  seeks  in  vain 
With  casual  shapes  to  fill  again ! 

"O  Thou,  that  in  our  bosom's  shrine 
Dost  dwell,  unknown  because  divine ! 
I  thought  to  speak ;  I  thought  to  say, 
'The  light  is  here,'  'Behold  the  way,' 
'The  voice  was  thus,'  and  'Thus  the  word,' 
And  'Thus  I  saw,'  and  'That  I  heard': 
But  from  the  lips  that  half  essayed, 
The  imperfect  utterance  fell  unmade. 

"O  Thou,  in  that  mysterious  shrine 
Enthroned,  as  I  must  say,  divine ! 
I  will  not  frame  one  thought  of  what 
Thou  mayest  either  be  or  not. 
I  will  not  prate  of  'thus'  and  'so,' 
And  be  profane  with  '  yes '  and  '  no ' : 
Enough  that  in  our  soul  and  heart 
Thou,  whatso'er  Thou  mayst  be,  art." 

It  was  exceedingly  natural  that  Mr.  Clough  should 
incline  to  some  such  creed  as  this,  with  his  character 
and  in  his  circumstances.  He  had  by  nature,  proba- 
bly, an  exceedingly  real  mind,  in  the  good  sense  of 
that  expression  and  the  bad  sense.  The  actual  visible 
world,  as  it  was  and  as  he  saw  it,  exercised  over  him 
a  compulsory  influence.  The  hills  among  which  he 
had  wandered,  the  cities  he  had  visited,  the  friends 
whom  he  knew, — these  were  his  world.  Many  minds 
of  the  poetic  sort  easily  melt  down  these  palpable 
facts  into  some  impalpable  ether  of  their  own.  To 
such  a  mind  as  Shelley's  the  "solid  earth"  is  an 
immaterial  fact ;  it  is  not  even  a  cumbersome  dif- 
ficulty,—  it  is  a  preposterous  imposture.  Whatever 
may  exist,  all  that  clay  does  not  exist :  it  would  be 
too  absurd  to  think  so.  Common  persons  can  make 
nothing  of  this  dreaminess  ;  and  Mr.  Clough,  though 
superficial  observers  set  him  down  as  a  dreamer, 
could  not  make  much  either.  To  him,  as  to  the  mass 


182        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  men,  the  vulgar,  outward  world  was  a  primitive 
fact.  "  Texas  is  true,"  as  the  miser  said.  Reconcile 
what  you  have  to  say  with  green  peas,  for  green 
peas  are  certain :  such  was  Mr.  Clough's  idea.  He 
could  not  dissolve  the  world  into  credible  ideas  and 
then  believe  those  ideas,  as  many  poets  have  done. 
He  could  not  catch  up  a  creed  as  ordinary  men  do. 
He  had  a  straining,  inquisitive,  critical  mind ;  he 
scrutinized  every  idea  before  he  took  it  in ;  he  did 
not  allow  the  moral  forces  of  life  to  act  as  they 
should;  he  was  not  content  to  gain  a  belief  "by 
going  on  living."  He  said,— 

"  Action  will  furnish  belief, — but  will  that  belief  be  the  true  one? 
This  is  the  point,  you  know." 

He  felt  the  coarse  facts  of  the  plain  world  so  thor- 
oughly that  he  could  not  readily  take  in  anything 
which  did  not  seem  in  accordance  with  them  and 
like  them.  And  what  common  idea  of  the  invisible 
world  seems  in  the  least  in  accordance  with  them  or 
like  them  ? 

A  journal  writer  in  one  of  his  poems  f  has  expressed 
this  :  — 

"Comfort  has  come  to  me  here  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city; 
Comfort  —  how  do  you  think  ?  —  with  a  barrel-organ  to  bring  it. 
Moping  along  the  streets,  and  cursing  my  day  as  I  wandered, 
All  of  a  sudden  my  ear  met  the  sound  of  an  English  psalm-tune : 
Comfort  me  it  did,  till  indeed  I  was  very  near  crying. 
Ah,  there  is  some  great  truth,  partial  very  likely,  but  needful, 
Lodged,  I  am  strangely  sure,  in  the  tones  of  the  English  psalm- 
tune : 

Comfort  it  was  at  least ;  and  I  must  take  without  question 
Comfort,  however  it  come,  in  the  dreary  streets  of  the  city. 

"What  with  trusting  myself,  and  seeking  support  from  within  me, 
Almost  I  could  believe  I  had  gained  a  religious  assurance, 
Formed  in  my  own  poor  soul  a  great  moral  basis  to  rest  on. 
Ah,  but  indeed  I  see,  I  feel  it  factitious  entirely ; 
I  refuse,  reject,  and  put  it  utterly  from  me ; 
I  will  look  straight  out,  see  things,  not  try  to  evade  them ; 
Fact  shall  be  fact  for  me,  and  the  Truth  the  Truth  as  ever, 


*" Amours  de  Voyage,"  v.  2.  tlbid.,  v.  5. 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  183 

Flexible,  changeable,  vague,  and  multiform,  and  doubtful.  — 
Off,  and  depart  to  the  void,  thou  subtle,  fanatical  tempter ! " 

Mr.  dough's  fate  in  life  had  been  such  as  to  ex- 
aggerate this  naturally  peculiar  temper.  He  was  a 
pupil  of  Arnold's  ;  one  of  his  best,  most  susceptible, 
and  favorite  pupils.  Some  years  since,  there  was 
much  doubt  and  interest  as  to  the  effect  of  Arnold's 
teaching.  His  sudden  death,  so  to  say,  cut  his  life 
in  the  middle,  and  opened  a  tempting  discussion  as 
to  the  effect  of  his  teaching  when  those  taught  by 
him  should  have  become  men  and  not  boys.  The 
interest  which  his  own  character  then  awakened,  and 
must  always  awaken,  stimulated  the  discussion,  and 
there  was  much  doubt  about  it.  But  now  we  need 
doubt  no  longer.  The  Rugby  "men"  are  real  men, 
and  the  world  can  pronounce  its  judgment.  Perhaps 
that  part  of  the  world  which  cares  for  such  things 
has  pronounced  it.  Dr.  Arnold  was  almost  indisputa- 
bly an  admirable  master  for  a  common  English  boy, 
—  the  small,  apple-eating  animal  whom  we  know. 
He  worked — he  pounded,  if  the  phrase  may  be  used  — 
into  the  boy  a  belief,  or  at  any  rate  a  floating,  con- 
fused conception,  that  there  are  great  subjects,  that 
there  are  strange  problems,  that  knowledge  has  an 
indefinite  value,  that  life  is  a  serious  and  solemn 
thing.  The  influence  of  Arnold's  teaching  upon  the 
majority  of  his  pupils  was  probably  very  vague,  but 
very  good.  To  impress  on  the  ordinary  Englishman 
a  general  notion  of  the  importance  of  what  is  intel- 
lectual and  the  reality  of  what  is  supernatural,  is  the 
greatest  benefit  which  can  be  conferred  upon  him. 
The  common  English  mind  is  too  coarse,  sluggish, 
and  worldly  to  take  such  lessons  too  much  to  heart. 
It  is  improved  by  them  in  many  ways,  and  is  not 
harmed  by  them  at  all.  But  there  are  a  few  minds 
which  are  very  likely  to  think  too  much  of  such 
things.  A  susceptible,  serious,  intellectual  boy  may 
be  injured  by  the  incessant  inculcation  of  the  awful- 
ness  of  life  and  the  magnitude  of  great  problems. 
It  is  not  desirable  to  take  this  world  too  much 


184  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

cm  serieux :  most  persons  will  not ;  and  the  one  in  a 
thousand  who  will,  should  not.  Mr.  Clough  was  one 
of  those  who  will.  He  was  one  of  Arnold's  favorite 
pupils,  because  he  gave  heed  so  much  to  Arnold's 
teaching ;  and  exactly  because  he  gave  heed  to  it, 
was  it  bad  for  him.  He  required  quite  another  sort 
of  teaching  :  to  be  told  to  take  things  easily  ;  not  to 
try  to  be  wise  overmuch;  to  be  "something  beside 
critical "  ;  to  go  on  living  quietly  and  obviously,  and 
see  what  truth  would  come  to  him.  Mr.  Clough  had 
to  his  latest  years  what  may  be  noticed  in  others 
of  Arnold's  disciples,  —  a  fatigued  way  of  looking  at 
great  subjects.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  put 
into  them  before  his  time,  had  seen  through  them, 
heard  all  which  could  be  said  about  them,  had  been 
bored  by  them,  and  had  come  to  want  something  else. 
A  still  worse  consequence  was,  that*  the  faith, 
the  doctrinal  teaching  which  Arnold  impressed  on  the 
youths  about  him,  was  one  personal  to  Arnold  him- 
self, which  arose  out  of  the  peculiarities  of  his  own 
character,  which  can  only  be  explained  by  them.  As 
soon  as  an  inquisitive  mind  was  thrown  into  a  new 
intellectual  atmosphere,  and  was  obliged  to  naturalize 
itself  in  it,  to  consider  the  creed  it  had  learned  with 
reference  to  the  facts  which  it  encountered  and  met, 
much  of  that  creed  must  fade  away.  There  were 
inevitable  difficulties  in  it,  which  only  the  personal 
peculiarities  of  Arnold  prevented  his  perceiving,  and 
which  every  one  else  must  soon  perceive.  The  new 
intellectual  atmosphere  into  which  Mr.  Clough  was 
thrown  was  peculiarly  likely  to  have  this  disenchant- 
ing effect.  It  was  the  Oxford  of  Father  Newman  ;  an 
Oxford  utterly  different  from  Oxford  as  it  is,  or  from 
the  same  place  as  it  had  been  twenty  years  before. 
A  complete  estimate  of  that  remarkable  thinker  can- 
not be  given  here  :  it  would  be  no  easy  task  even 
now,  many  years  after  this  influence  has  declined, 
nor  is  it  necessary  for  the  present  purpose.  Two 

*  Meaningless  from  bad  syntax.     Read  "  A  still  worse  consequence  was, 
that  as  the  teaching  .  .  .  was  personal,"  etc.,  it  "must  fade  away." — ED. 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  185 

points  are  quite  certain  of  Father  Newman,  and  they 
are  the  only  two  which  are  at  present  material.  He 
was  undeniably  a  consummate  master  of  the  difficult- 
ies of  the  creeds  of  other  men.  With  a  profoundly 
religious  organization  which  was  hard  to  satisfy,  with 
an  imagination  which  could  not  help  setting  before 
itself  simply  and  exactly  what  different  creeds  would 
come  to  and  mean  in  life,  with  an  analyzing  and 
most  subtle  intellect  which  was  sure  to  detect  the 
weak  point  in  an  argument  if  a  weak  point  there 
was,  with  a  manner  at  once  grave  and  fascinating, — 
he  was  a  nearly  perfect  religious  disputant,  whatever 
may  be  his  deficiencies  as  a  religious  teacher.  The 
most  accomplished  theologian  of  another  faith  would 
have  looked  anxiously  to  the  joints  of  his  harness  be- 
fore entering  the  lists  with  an  adversary  so  prompt  and 
keen.  To  suppose  that  a  youth  fresh  from  Arnold's 
teaching,  with  a  hasty  faith  in  a  scheme  of  thought 
radically  inconsistent,  should  be  able  to  endure  such 
an  encounter,  was  absurd.  Arnold  nattered  himself 
that  he  was  a  principal  opponent  of  Mr.  Newman ; 
but  he  was  rather  a  principal  fellow-laborer.  There 
was  but  one  quality  in  a  common  English  boy  which 
would  have  enabled  him  to  resist  such  a  reasoner  as 
Mr.  Newman.  "We  have  a  heavy  apathy  on  exciting 
topics,  which  enables  us  to  leave  dilemmas  unsolved, 
to  forget  difficulties,  to  go  about  our  pleasure  or  our 
business,  and  to  leave  the  reasoner  to  pursue  his 
logic:  "anyhow  he  is  very  long,"  —  that  we  compre- 
hend. But  it  was  exactly  this  happy  apathy,  this  com- 
monplace indifference,  that  Arnold  prided  himself  on 
removing.  He  objected  strenuously  to  Mr.  Newman's 
creed,  but  he  prepared  anxiously  the  very  soil  in 
which  that  creed  was  sure  to  grow.  A  multitude  of 
such  minds  as  Mr.  dough's,  from  being  Arnoldites, 
became  Newmanites. 

A  second  quality  in  Mr.  Newman  is  at  least  equally 
clear.  He  was  much  better  skilled  in  finding  out  the 
difficulties  of  other  men's  creeds  than  in  discovering 


186  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

and  stating  a  distinct  basis  for  his  own.  In  most  of 
his  characteristic  works  he  does  not  even  attempt  it. 
His  argument  is  essentially  an  argument  ad  hominem; 
an  argument  addressed  to  the  present  creed  of  the 
person  with  whom,  he  is  reasoning.  He  says,  "Give 
up  what  you  hold  already,  or  accept  what  I  now  say; 
for  that  which  you  already  hold  involves  it."  Even 
in  books  w^here  he  is  especially  called  on  to  deal  with 
matters  of  first  principle,  the  result  is  unsatisfactory. 
We  have  heard  it  said  that  he  has  in  later  life  ac- 
counted for  the  argumentative  vehemence  of  his  book 
against  the  Church  of  Rome  by  saying,  "I  did  it  as 
a  duty;  I  put  myself  into  a  state  of  mind  to  write 
that  book."  *  And  this  is  just  the  impression  which 
his  arguments  give.  His  elementary  principles  seem 
made,  not  born.  Very  likely  he  would  admit  the  fact, 
and  yet  defend  his  practice.  He  would  say,  "Such 
a  being  as  man  is,  in  such  a  world  as  this  is,f  must 
do  so ;  he  must  make  a  venture  for  his  religion.  He 
may  see  a  greater  probability  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Church  is  true  than  that  it  is  false ;  he  may  see  be- 
fore he  believes  in  her  that  she  has  greater  evidence 
than  any  other  creed :  but  he  must  do  the  rest  for 
himself.  By  means  of  his  will  he  must  put  himself 
into  a  new  state  of  mind ;  he  must  cast  in  his  lot 
with  the  Church  here  and  hereafter :  then  his  belief 
will  gradually  strengthen ;  he  will  in  time  become 
sure  of  what  she  says."  He  undoubtedly,  in  the  time 
of  his  power,  persuaded  many  young  men  to  try 
some  such  process  as  this.  The  weaker,  the  more 
credulous,  and  the  more  fervent  were  able  to  perse- 
vere; those  who  had  not  distinct  perceptions  of  real 
truth,  who  were  dreamy  and  fanciful  by  nature,  per- 
severed without  difficulty.  But  Mr.  Clough  could  not 
do  so:  he  felt  it  was  "something  factitious."]:  He 
began  to  speak  of  "the  ruinous  force  of  the  will,"§ 
and  "our  terrible  notions  of  duty";||  he  ceased  to 
be  a  Newmanite. 


*  He  says  it  repeatedly  himself  (in  substance)  in  his  "  Apologia  pro  Vita 
Sua."  — ED.  t  See  note  to  Vol.  ii.,  pasre  109. 

1 1  "Amours  de  Voyage,"  ii.  13.  §  Ibid.,  iii.  7. 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  187 

Thus  Mr.  Clough's  career  and  life  were  exactly  those 
most  likely  to  develop  and  foster  a  morbid  peculiar- 
ity of  his  intellect.  He  had,  as  we  have  explained, 
by  nature  an  unusual  difficulty  in  forming  a  creed 
as  to  the  unseen  world  :  he  could  not  get  the  visi- 
ble world  out  of  his  head  ;  his  strong  grasp  of  plain 
facts  and  obvious  matters  was  a  difficulty  to  him. 
Too  easily  one  great  teacher  inculcated  a  remarkable 
creed;  then  another  great  teacher  took  it  away; 
then  this  second  teacher  made  him  believe  for  a  time 
some  of  his  own  artificial  faith ;  then  it  would  not 
do.  He  fell  back  on  that  vague,  impalpable,  unem- 
bodied  religion  which  we  have  attempted  to  describe. 

He  has  himself  given  in  a  poem,  now  first  pub- 
lished,* a  very  remarkable  description  of  this  curious 
state  of  mind.  He  has  prefixed  to  it  the  character- 
istic motto,  "II  doutait  de  tout,  meme  de  ramour."f 
It  is  the  delineation  of  a  certain  love  passage  in  the 
life  of  a  hesitating  young  gentleman,  who  was  in 
Rome  at  the  time  of  the  revolution  of  1848 ;  who 
could  not  make  up  his  mind  about  the  revolution, 
who  could  not  make  up  his  mind  whether  he  liked 
Rome,  who  could  not  make  up  his  mind  whether  he 
liked  the  young  lady,  who  let  her  go  away  without 
him,  who  went  in  pursuit  of  her  and  could  not  make 
out  which  way  to  look  for  her,  —  "who,  in  fine,  has 
some  sort  of  religion,  but  cannot  himself  tell  what 
it  is.  The  poem  was  not  published  in  the  author's 
lifetime ;  and  there  are  some  lines  which  we  are 
persuaded  he  would  have  further  polished,  and  some 
parts  which  he  would  have  improved,  if  he  had  seen 
them  in  print.  It  is  written  in  conversational  hex- 
ameters, in  a  tone  of  semi-satire  and  half-belief.  Part 
of  the  commencement  is  a  good  example  of  them  :  — 

"  Rome  disappoints  me  much  :   I  hardly  as  yet  understand,  but 
Rubbishy  seems  the  word  that  most  exactly  would  suit  it. 
All  the  foolish  destructions,  and  all  the  sillier  savings, 
All  the  incongruous  things  of  the  past  incompatible  ages, 
Seem  to  be  treasured  up  here  to  make  fools  of  present  and  future. 


"Amours  de  Voyage."  t  "  He  doubted  everything,  even  love." 


188  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Would  to  Heaven  the  old  Goths  had  made  a  cleaner  sweep  of  it ! 
Would  to  Heaven  some  new  ones  would  come  and  destroy  these 

churches ! 

However,  one  can  live  in  Rome  as  also  in  London. 
Rome  is  better  than  London,  because  it  is  other  than  London. 
It  is  a  blessing,  no  doubt,  to  be  rid,  at  least  for  a  time,  of 
All  one's  friends  and  relations,  —  yourself  (forgive  me  !)  included,  — 
All  the  assujettissement  of  having  been  what  one  has  been, 
What  one  thinks  one  is,  or  thinks  that  others  suppose  one ; 
Yet,  in  despite  of  all,  we  turn  like  fools  to  the  English. 
Vernon  has  been  my  fate ;  who  is  here  the  same  that  you  knew 

him, — 
Making  the  tour,  it  seems,  with  friends  of  the  name  of  Trevellyn. 

"  Rome  disappoints  me  still ;  but  I  shrink  and  adapt  myself  to  it. 
Somehow  a  tyrannous  sense  of  a  superincumbent  oppression 
Still,  wherever  I  go,  accompanies  ever,  and  makes  me 
Feel  like  a  tree  (shall  I  say  ?)  buried  under  a  ruin  of  brick-work. 
Rome,  believe  me,  my  friend,  is  like  its  own  Monte  Testaceo, 
Merely  a  marvelous  mass  of  broken  and  cast-away  wine  pots. 
Ye  gods  !   what  do  I  want  with  this  rubbish  of  ages  departed, 
Things  that  Nature  abhors,  the  experiments  that  she  has  failed  in  ? 
What  do   I  find  in  the  Forum  ?    An  archway  and  two  or  three 

pillars. 

Well,  but  St.  Peter's  ?    Alas,  Bernini  has  filled  it  with  sculpture ! 
No  one  can  cavil,  I  grant,  at  the  size  of  the  great  Coliseum : 
Doubtless  the"  notion  of  grand  and  capacious  and  massive  amuse- 
ment, 

This  the  old  Romans  had  ;  but  tell  me,  is  this  an  idea  ? 
Yet  of  solidity  much,  but  of  splendor  little  is  extant : 
'  Brick-work  I  found  thee,  and  marble  I  left  thee ! '  their  Emperor 

vaunted  : 

'  Marble  I  thought  thee,  and  brick- work  I  find  thee  ! '  the  tourist 
may  answer." 

As  he  goes  on,  he  likes  Rome  rather  better,  but  haz- 
ards the  following  imprecation  on  the  Jesuits  :  — 

"  Luther,  they  say,  was  unwise  :  he  didn't  see  how  things  were  going  ; 
Luther  was  foolish, — but,  O  great  God  !   what  call  you  Ignatius? 
O  my  tolerant  soul,  be  still !   but  you  talk  of  barbarians,  — 
Alaric,  Attila,  Genseric  ;  —  why,  they  came,  they  killed,  they 
Ravaged,  and  went  on  their  way  :  but  these  vile,  tyrannous  Span- 
iards, 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  189 

These  are  here  still, —  how  long,  O  ye  heavens,  in  the  country  of 

Dante  ? 

These,  that  fanaticized  Europe,  which  now  can  forget  them,  re- 
lease not 

This,  their  choicest  of  prey,  this  Italy ;  here  you  see  them, — 
Here,  with  emasculate  pupils  and  gimcrack  churches  of  Gesu, 
Pseudo-learning  and  lies,  confessional-boxes  and  postures, — 
Here,  with  metallic  beliefs  and  regimental  devotions, — 
Here,  overcrusting  with  slime,  perverting,  defacing,   debasing 
Michael  Angelo's  dome,  that  had  hung  the  Pantheon  in  heaven, 
Raphael's  Joys  and  Graces,  and  thy  clear  stars,  Galileo  ! " 

The  plot  of  the  poem  is  very  simple,  and  certainly 
is  not  very  exciting.  The  moving  force,  as  in  most 
novels  of  verse  or  prose,  is  the  love  of  the  hero  for 
the  heroine ;  but  this  love  assuredly  is  not  of  a  very 
impetuous  and  overpowering  character.  The  interest 
of  this  story  is  precisely  that  it  is  not  overpowering. 
The  over-intellectual  hero,  over-anxious  to  be  com- 
posed, will  not  submit  himself  to  his  love ;  over-fear- 
ful of  what  is  voluntary  and  factitious,  he  will  not 
make  an  effort  and  cast  in  his  lot  with  it.  He  states 
his  view  of  the  subject  better  than  we  can  state  it :  — 

"I  am  in  love,  meantime,  you  think  ;  no  doubt  you  would  think  so. 
I  am  in  love,  you  say ;  with  those  letters,  of  course,  you  would 

say  so. 

I  am  in  love,  you  declare.     I  think  not  so  ;  yet  I  grant  you 
It  is  a  pleasure  indeed  to  converse  with  this  girl.     Oh,  rare  gift, 
Rare  felicity,  this !    she  can  talk  in  a  rational  way,  can 
Speak   upon   subjects   that   really    are   matters    of   mind    and   of 

thinking, 

Yet  in  perfection  retain  her  simplicity  ;  never,  one  moment, 
Never,  however  you  urge  it,  however  you  tempt  her,  consents  to 
Step  from  ideas  and  fancies  and  loving  sensations  to  those  vain 
Conscious  understandings  that  vex  the  minds  of  man-kind. 
No,  though  she  talk,  it  is  music  ;  her  fingers  desert  not  the  keys ;  'tis 
Song,  though  you  hear  in  the  song  the  articulate  vocables  sounded, 
Syllabled  singly  and  sweetly  the  words  of  melodious  meaning. 
I  am  in  love,  you  say ;  I  do  not  think  so,  exactly. 

"There  are  two  different- kinds.  I  believe,  of  human  attraction: 
One  which  simply  disturbs,  unsettles,  and  makes  you  uneasy, 


190  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

And  another  that  poises,  retains,  and  fixes  and  holds  you. 

I  have  no  doubt,  for  myself,  in  giving  my  voice  for  the  latter. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  moved,  but  growing  where  I  was  growing, 

There  more  truly  to  grow,  to  live  where  as  yet  I  had  languished. 

I  do  not  like  being  moved :  for  the  will  is  excited ;  and  action 

Is  a  most  dangerous  thing ;  I  tremble  for  something  factitious, 

Some  malpractice  of  heart  and  illegitimate  process : 

"We  are  so  prone  to  these  things,  with  our  terrible  notions  of  duty. 

Ah,  let  me  look,  let  me  watch,  let  me  wait,  unhurried,  unprompted  ! 

Bid  me  not  venture  on  aught  that  could  alter  or  end  what  is 

present ! 

Say  not,  Time  flies,  and  Occasion,  that  never  returns,  is  departing ! 
Drive  me  not  out,  ye  ill  angels  with  fiery  swords,  from  my  Eden, 
Waiting,   and  watching,  and  looking !    Let  love  be  its  own  in- 
spiration ! 
Shall  not  a  voice,  if  a  voice  there  must  be,  from  the  airs  that 

environ, 

Yea,  from  the  conscious  heavens,  without  our  knowledge  or  effort, 
Break  into  audible  words  ?  and  love  be  its  own  inspiration  ? " 

It  appears,  however,  that  even  this  hesitating  here 
would  have  come  to  the  point  at  last.  In  a  book,  at 
least,  the  hero  has  nothing  else  to  do.  The  inevitable 
restrictions  of  a  pretty  story  hem  him  in :  to  wind 
up  the  plot,  he  must  either  propose  or  die,  and  usu- 
ally he  prefers  proposing.  Mr.  Claude  —  for  such  is 
the  name  of  Mr.  dough's  hero — is  evidently  on  his 
road  towards  the  inevitable  alternative,  when  his  fate 
intercepts  him  by  the  help  of  a  person  who  meant 
nothing  less.  There  is  a  sister  of  the  heroine,  who 
is  herself  engaged  to  a  rather  quick  person,  and  who 
cannot  make  out  any  one's  conducting  himself  differ- 
ently from  her  George  Vernon.  She  writes  :  — 

"Mr.  Claude,  you  must  know,  is  behaving  a  little  bit  better; 
He  and  Papa  are  great  friends  ;  but  he  really  is  too  shilly-shally,  — 
So  unlike  George  !    Yet  I  hope  that  the  matter  is  going  on  fairly. 
I  shall,  however,  get  George,  before  he  goes,  to  say  something. 
Dearest  Louisa,  how  delightful  to  bring  young  people  together ! " 

As   the   heroine    says,    "dear    Georgina"   wishes   for 
nothing  so  much  as  to  show  her  adroitness.     George 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  191 

Vernon  does  interfere,  and  Mr.  Claude  may  describe 
for  himself  the  change  it  makes  in  his  fate  :  — 

"Tibur  is  beautiful  too,  and  the  orchard  slopes,  and  the  Anio 
Falling,  falling  yet,  to  the  ancient  lyrical  cadence ; 
Tibur  and  Anio's  tide ;  and  cool  from  Lucretilis  ever, 
With  the  Digentian  stream,  and  with  the  Bandusian  fountain, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  :  — 
So  not  seeing  I  sung ;  so  seeing  and  listening  say  I, 
Here  as  I  sit  by  the  stream,  as  I  gaze  at  the  cell  of  the  Sibyl, 
Here  with  Albunea's  home  and  the  grove  of  Tiburnus  beside  me  ;  * 
Tivoli  beautiful  is,  and  musical,  O  Teverone, 
Dashing  from  mountain  to  plain,  thy  parted  impetuous  waters ! 
Tivoli's  waters  and  rocks ;  and  fair  under  Monte  Gennaro, 
(Haunt   even  yet,  I  must   think,  as   I   wander  and  gaze,  of  the 

shadows, 
Faded  and  pale,  yet  immortal,  of  Faunus,  the  Nymphs,  and  the 

Graces,) 

Fair  in  itself,  and  yet  fairer  with  human  completing  creations, 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses,  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace  :  — 
.So  not  seeing  I  sung;  so  now —    Nor  seeing,  nor  hearing, 
Neither  by  waterfall  lulled,  nor  folded  in  sylvan  embraces, 
Neither  by  cell  of  the  Sibyl,  nor  stepping  the  Monte  Gennaro, 
Seated  on  Anio's  bank,  nor  sipping  Bandusian  waters, 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  down  on  the  tile-clad  streets, 

the 

Cupolas,  crosses,  and  domes,  the  bushes  and  kitchen-gardens, 
"Which,  by  the  grace  of  the  Tiber,  proclaim  themselves  Rome  of 

the  Romans, — 

But  on  Montorio's  height,  looking  forth  to  the  vapory  mountains, 
Cheating  the  prisoner  Hope  with  illusions  of  vision  and  fancy, — 
But  on  Montorio's  height,  with  these  weary  soldiers  by  me, 
Waiting  till  Oudinot  enter,  to  reinstate  Pope  and  tourist. 

Yes,  on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city, — 

So  it  appears ;  though  then  I  was  quite  uncertain  about  it. 

So,  however,  it  was.     And  now  to  explain  the  proceeding. 

I  was  to  go,  as  I  told  you,  I  think,  with  the  people  to  Florence. 

Only  the  day  before,  the  foolish  family  Vernon 

Made  some  uneasy  remarks,  as  we  walked  to  our  lodging  together, 


" — domus  Albuneae  resonantis, 
Et  praceps  Anio,  ac  Tiburni  lucns,  et  uda 

Mobilibus  pomaria  rivis."  —  Horace,  Od.  i.,  vii.  12. 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


As  to  intentions,  forsooth,  and  so  forth.     I  was  astounded, 
Horrified  quite;  and  obtaining  just  then,  as  it  happened,  an  offer 
(No  common  favor)  of  seeing  the  great  Ludovisi  collection, 
Why,  I  made  this  a  pretense,  and  wrote  that  they  must  excuse  me. 
How  could  I  go  ?    Great  Heaven !  to  conduct  a  permitted  flirtation 
Under  those  vulgar  eyes,  the  observed  of  such  observers ! 
Well,  but  I  now,  by  a  series  of  fine  diplomatic  inquiries, 
Find  from  a  sort  of  relation,  a  good  and  sensible  woman, 
Who  is  remaining  at  Rome  with  a  brother  too  ill  for  removal, 
That   it   was   wholly   unsanctioned,  unknown,  —  not,   I   think,  by 

Georgina ; 

She,  however,  ere  this, —  and  that  is  the  best  of  the  story, — 
She    and    the  Vernon,  thank   Heaven,   are   wedded    and   gone  — 

honeymooning. 

So  —  on  Montorio's  height  for  a  last  farewell  of  the  city. 
Tibur  I  have  not  seen,  nor  the  lakes  that  of  old  I  had  dreamt  of ; 
Tibur  I  shall  not  see,  nor  Anio's  waters,  nor  deep  en- 
Folded  in  Sabine  recesses  the  valley  and  villa  of  Horace ; 
Tibur  I  shall  not  see; — but  something  better  I  shall  see. 
Twice  I  have  tried  before,  and  failed  in  getting  the  horses ; 
Twice  I. have  tried  and  failed :  this  time  it  shall  not  be  a  failure." 

But  of  course  he  does  not  reach  Florence  till  the 
heroine  and  her  family  are  gone;  and  he  hunts  after 
them  through  North  Italy,  not  very  skillfully,  and 
then  he  returns  to  Rome ;  and  he  reflects,  certainly 
not  in  a  very  dignified  or  heroic  manner:  — 

"I  cannot  stay  at  Florence,  not  even  to  wait  for  a  letter. 
Galleries  only  oppress  me.     Remembrance  of  hope  I  had  cherished 
(Almost  more  than  as  hope,  when  I  passed  through  Florence  the 
first  time) 

.  Lies  like  a  sword  in  my  soul.     I  am  more  a  coward  than  ever, 
Chicken-hearted,  past  thought.     The  cafes  and  waiters  distress  me. 
All  is  unkind, —  and,  alas!  I  am  ready  for  any  one's  kindness. 
Oh,  I  knew  it  of  old,  and  knew  it,  I  thought,  to  perfection : 
If  there  is  any  one  thing  in  the  world  to  preclude  all  kindness, 
It  is  the  need  of  it, — it  is  this  sad,  self-defeating  dependence. 
Why  is  this,  Eustace?     Myself,  were  I  stronger,  I  think  I  could 

tell  you. 

But  it  is  odd  when  it  comes.     So  plumb  I  the  deeps  of  depression, 
Daily  in  deeper,  and  find  no  support,  no  will,  no  purpose. 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  193 

All  my  old  strengths  are  gone.     And  yet  I  shall  have  to  do 

something. 

Ah,  the  key  of  our  life,  that  passes  all  -wards,  opens  all  locks, 
Is  not  I  will,  but  I  must.     I  must, —  I  must, —  and  I  do  it. 

"After  all,  do  I  know  that  I  really  cared  so  about  her? 
Do  whatever  I  will,  I  cannot  call  up  her  image ; 
For  when  I  close  my  eyes,  I  see,  very  likely,  St.  Peter's, 
Or  the  Pantheon  facade,  or  Michael  Angelo's  figures, 
Or,  at  a  wish,  when  I  please,  the  Alban  hills  and  the  Forum, — 
But  that  face,  those  eyes, — ah,  no,  never  anything  like  them; 
Only,  try  as  I  will,  a  sort  of  featureless  outline, 
And  a  pale  blank  orb,  which  no  recollection  will  add  to. 
After  all,  perhaps  there  was  something  factitious  about  it: 
I  have  had  pain,  it  is  true ;  I  have  wept,  and  so  have  the  actors. 

"At  the  last  moment  I  have  your  letter,  for  which  I  was  waiting; 
I  have  taken  my  place,  and  see  no  good  in  inquiries. 
Do  nothing  more,  good  Eustace,  I  pray  you.     It  only  will  vex  me. 
Take  no  measures.     Indeed,  should  we  meet,  I  could  not  be  certain  ; 
All  might  be  changed,  you  know.     Or  perhaps  there  was  nothing 

to  be  changed. 

It  is  a  curious  history,  this :  and  yet  I  foresaw  it ; 
I  could  have  told  it  before.     The  Fates,  it  is  clear,  are  against  us ; 
For  it  is  certain  enough  that  I  met  with  the  people  you  mention ; 
They  were  at  Florence  the  day  I  returned  there,  and  spoke  to 

me  even ; 

Stayed  a  week,  saw  me  often ;  departed,  and  whither  I  know  not. 
Great  is  Fate,  and  is  best.     I  believe  in  Providence  partly. 
What  is  ordained  is  right,  and  all  that  happens  is  ordered. 
Ah,  no,  that  isn't  it.     But  yet  I  retain  my  conclusion. 
I  will  go  where  I  am  led,  and  will  not  dictate  to  the  chances. 
Do  nothing  more,  I  beg.     If  you  love  me,  forbear  interfering." 

And  the  heroine,  like  a  sensible,  quiet  girl,  sums  up: — 

"You  have  heard  nothing;  of  course,  I  know  you  can  have  heard 

nothing. 

Ah,  well,  more  than  once  I  have  broken  my  purpose,  and, some- 
times, 
Only  too  often,  have  looked  for  the  little  lake-steamer  to  bring 

him. 

But  it  is  only  fancy, —  I  do  not  really  expect  it. 
Oh,  and  you  see  I  know  so  exactly  how  he  would  take  it : 
VOL.  I.  —  13 


194  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Finding  the  chances  prevail  against  meeting  again,  he  would  banish 

Forthwith  every  thought  of  the  poor  little  possible  hope,  which 

I  myself  could  not  help,  perhaps,  thinking  only  too  much  of ; 

He  would  resign  himself,  and  go.     I  see  it  exactly. 

So  I  also  submit,  although  in  a  different  manner. 

Can  you  not  really  come?    We  go  very  shortly  to  England." 

And  there  let  us  hope  she  found  a  more  satisfactory 
lover  and  husband. 

The  same  defect  which  prevented  Mr.  Claude  from 
obtaining  his  bride  will  prevent  this  poem  from  ob- 
taining universal  popularity.  The  public  like  stories 
which  come  to  something;  Mr.  Arnold  teaches  that  a 
great  poem  must  be  founded  on  a  great  action,  and 
this  one  is  founded  on  a  long  inaction.  But  Art  has 
many  mansions.  Many  poets,  whose  cast  of  thought 
unfits  them  for  very  diffused  popularity,  have  yet  a 
concentrated  popularity  which  suits  them  and  which 
lasts.  Henry  Taylor  has  wisely  said  that  "a  poet 
does  not  deserve  the  name  who  would  not  rather  be 
read  a  thousand  times  by  one  man  than  a  single 
time  by  a  thousand."  This  repeated  perusal,  this  test- 
ing by  continual  repetition  and  close  contact,  is  the 
very  test  of  intellectual  poetry :  unless  such  poetry 
can  identify  itself  with  our  nature  and  dissolve  itself 
into  our  constant  thought,  it  is  nothing,  or  less  than 
nothing :  it  is  an  ineffectual  attempt  to  confer  a  rare 
pleasure;  it  teases  by  reminding  us  of  that  pleasure, 
and  tires  by  the  effort  which  it  demands  from  us. 
But  if  a  poem  really  possesses  this  capacity  of  intel- 
lectual absorption, — if  it  really  is  in  matter  of  fact 
accepted,  apprehended,  delighted  in,  and  retained,  by 
a  large  number  of  cultivated  and  thoughtful  minds,— 
its  non-recognition  by  what  is  called  "the  public"  is  no 
more  against  it  than  its  non-recognition  by  the  coal- 
heavers.  The  half-educated  and  busy  crowd,  whom 
we  call  "the  public,"  have  no  more  right  to  impose 
their  limitations  on  highly  educated  and  meditative 
thinkers  than  the  uneducated  and  yet  more  numerous 
crowd  have  to  impose  their  still  narrower  limitations 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  195 

on  the  half-educated.  The  coal-heaver  will  not  read 
any  books  whatever;  the  mass  of  men  will  not  read 
an  intellectual  poem :  it  can  hardly  ever  be  otherwise. 
But  timid  thinkers  must  not  dread  to  have  a  secret 
and  rare  faith.  But  little  deep  poetry  is  very  popu- 
lar, and  no  severe  art.  Such  poetry  as  Mr.  Clough's, 
especially,  can  never  be  so, — its  subjects  would  for- 
bid it,  even  if  its  treatment  were  perfect;  but  it  may 
have  a  better  fate :  it  may  have  a  tenacious  hold  on 
the  solitary,  the  meditative,  and  the  calm.  It  is  this 
which  Mr.  Clough  would  have  wished :  he  did  not 
desire  to  be  liked  by  "inferior  people," — at  least  he 
would  have  distrusted  any  poem  of  his  own  which 
they  did  like. 

The  artistic  skill  of  these  poems,  especially  of  the 
poem  from  which  we  have  extracted  so  much,  and  of 
a  long  vacation  pastoral  published  in  the  Highlands, 
is  often  excellent,  and  occasionally  fails  when  you 
least  expect  it.  There  was  an  odd  peculiarity  in  Mr. 
Clough's  mind :  you  never  could  tell  whether  it  was 
that  he  would  not  show  himself  to  the  best  advan- 
tage, or  whether  he  could  not;  it  is  certain  that  he 
very  often  did  not,  whether  in  life  or  in  books.  His 
intellect  moved  with  a  great  difficulty,  and  it  had  a 
larger  inertia  than  any  other  which  we  have  ever 
known.  Probably  there  was  an  awkwardness  born 
with  him,  and  his  shyness  and  pride  prevented  him 
from  curing  that  awkwardness  as  most  men  would 
have  done.  He  felt  he  might  fail,  and  he  knew  that 
he  hated  to  fail.  He  neglected,  therefore,  many  of 
the  thousand  petty  trials  which  fashion  and  form  the 
accomplished  man  of  the  world.  Accordingly,  when 
at  last  he  wanted  to  do  something,  or  was  obliged 
to  attempt  something,  he  had  occasionally  a  singular 
difficulty :  he  could  not  get  his  matter  out  of  him. 

In  poetry  he  had  a  further  difficulty,  arising  from 
perhaps  an  over-cultivated  taste.  He  was  so  good  a 
disciple  of  Wordsworth,  he  hated  so  thoroughly  the 
common  sing-song  metres  of  Moore  and  Byron,  that 


196  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

he  was  apt  to  try  to  write  what  will  seem  to  many 
persons  to  have  scarcely  a  metre  at  all.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  metre  of  intellectual  poetry  should  not 
be  so  pretty  as  that  of  songs,  or  so  plain  and  impres- 
sive as  that  of  vigorous  passion.  The  rhythm  should 
pervade  it  and  animate  it,  but  should  not  protrude 
itself  upon  the  surface  or  intrude  itself  upon  the  at- 
tention. It  should  be  a  latent  charm,  though  a  real 
one.  Yet,  though  this  doctrine  is  true,  it  is  never- 
theless a  dangerous  doctrine.  Most  writers  need  the 
strict  fetters  of  familiar  metre :  as  soon  as  they  are 
emancipated  from  this,  they  fancy  that  any  words  of 
theirs  are  metrical.  If  a  man  will  read  any  expres- 
sive and  favorite  words  of  his  own  often  enough,  he 
will  come  to  believe  that  they  are  rhythmical :  prob- 
ably they  have  a  rhythm  as  he  reads  them ;  but  no 
notation  of  pauses  and  accents  could  tell  the  reader 
how  to  read  them  in  that  manner,  and  when  read 
in  any  other  mode  they  may  be  prose  itself.  Some 
of  Mr.  Clough's  early  poems,  which  are  placed  at  the 
beginning  of  this  volume,  are  perhaps  examples,  more 
or  less,  of  this  natural  self-delusion.  Their  writer 
could  read  them  as  verse,  but  that  was  scarcely  his 
business ;  and  the  common  reader  fails. 

Of  one  metre,  however, — the  hexameter,  —  we  be- 
lieve the  most  accomplished  judges,  and  also  common 
readers,  agree  that  Mr.  Clough  possesses  a  very  pecul- 
iar mastery.  Perhaps  he  first  showed  in  English  its 
flexibility.  Whether  any  consummate  poem  of  great 
length  and  sustained  dignity  can  be  written  in  this 
metre,  and  in  our  language,  we  do  not  know :  until 
a  great  poet  has  written  his  poem,  there  are  com- 
monly no  lack  of  plausible  arguments  that  seem  to 
prove  he  cannot  write  it ;  but  Mr.  Clough  has  cer- 
tainly shown  that  in  the  hands  of  a  skillful  and  ani- 
mated artist,  it  is  capable  of  adapting  itself  to  varied 
descriptions  of  life  and  manners,  to  noble  sentiments, 
and  to  changing  thoughts.  It  is  perhaps  the  most 
flexible  of  English  metres.  Better  than  any  others, 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  197 

it  changes  from  grave  to  gay  without  desecrating 
what  should  be  solemn,  or  disenchanting  that  which 
should  be  graceful.  And  Mr.  Clough  was  the  first  to 
prove  this,  by  writing  a  noble  poem  in  which  it  was 
done. 

In  one  principal  respect,  Mr.  Clough's  two  poems 
in  hexameters,  and  especially  the  Roman  one  from 
which  we  made  so  many  extracts,  are  very  excel- 
lent: somehow  or  other  he  makes  you  understand 
what  the  people  of  whom  he  is  writing  precisely 
were.  You  may  object  to  the  means,  but  you  cannot 
deny  the  result.  By  fate  he  was  thrown  into  a  vor- 
tex of  theological  and  metaphysical  speculation,  but 
his  genius  was  better  suited  to  be  the  spectator  of  a 
more  active  and  moving  scene.  The  play  of  mind 
upon  mind ;  the  contrasted  view  which  contrasted 
minds  take  of  great  subjects  ;  the  odd  irony  of  life 
which  so  often  thrusts  into  conspicuous  places  exactly 
what  no  one  would  expect  to  find  in  those  places, — 
these  were  his  subjects.  Under  happy  circumstances, 
he  might  have  produced  on  such  themes  something 
which  the  mass  of  readers  would  have  greatly  liked  ; 
as  it  is,  he  has  produced  a  little  which  meditative 
readers  will  much  value,  and  which  they  will  long 
remember. 

Of  Mr.  Clough's  character  it  would  be  out  of  place 
to  say  anything,  except  in  so  far  as  it  elucidates  his 
poems.  The  sort  of  conversation  for  which  he  was 
most  remarkable  rises  again  in  the  "Amours  de  Voy- 
age," and  gives  them,  to  those  who  knew  him  in  life, 
a  very  peculiar  charm.  It  would  not  be  exact  to  call 
the  best  lines  a  pleasant  cynicism ;  for  cynicism  has 
a  bad  name,  and  the  ill-nature  and  other  offensive 
qualities  which  have  given  it  that  name  were  utterly 
out  of  Mr.  Clough's  way.  Though  without  much  fame, 
he  had  no  envy.  But  he  had  a  strong  realism.  He 
saw  what  it  is  considered  cynical  to  see,  —  the  absurd- 
ities of  many  persons,  the  pomposities  of  many  creeds, 
the  splendid  zeal  with  which  missionaries  rush  on  to 


198        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

teach  what  they  do  not  know,  the  wonderful  ear- 
nestness with  which  most  incomplete  solutions  of  the 
universe  are  thrust  upon  us  as  complete  and  satisfy- 
ing. "Le  fond  de  la  Providence,"  says  the  French  nov- 
elist, "c'est  1'ironie."*  Mr.  Clough  would  not  have 
said  that ;  but  he  knew  what  it  meant,  and  what  was 
the  portion  of  truth  contained  in  it.  Undeniably  this 
is  an  odd  world,  whether  it  should  have  been  so  or 
no ;  and  all  our  speculations  upon  it  should  begin 
with  some  admission  of  its  strangeness  and  singular- 
ity. The  habit  of  dwelling  on  such  thoughts  as  these 
will  not  of  itself  make  a  man  happy,  and  may  make 
unhappy  one  who  is  inclined  to  be  so.  Mr.  Clough 
in  his  time  felt  more  than  most  men  the  weight  of 
the  unintelligible  world  ;  but  such  thoughts  make  an 
instructive  man.  Several  survivors  may  think  they 
owe  much  to  Mr.  Clough's  quiet  question,  "Ah,  then, 
you  think  —  ? "  Many  pretending  creeds  and  many 
wonderful  demonstrations  passed  away  before  that 
calm  inquiry.  He  had  a  habit  of  putting  your  own 
doctrine  concisely  before  you,  so  that  you  might  see 
what  it  came  to,  and  that  you  did  not  like  it.  Even 
now  that  he  is  gone,  some  may  feel  the  recollection 
of  his  society  a  check  on  unreal  theories  and  half- 
mastered  thoughts.  Let  us  part  from  him  in  his  own 
words  :  — 

"Some  future  day,  when  what  is  now  is  not, 
When  all  old  faults  and  follies  are  forgot, 
And  thoughts  of  difference  passed  like  dreams  away, — 
Well  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

"When  all  that  hindered,  all  that  vexed  our  love, 
The  tall,  rank  weeds  that  clomb  the  blade  above, 
And  all  but  it  has  yielded  to  decay, — 
We'll  meet  again,  upon  some  future  day. 

"When  we  have  proved,  each  on  his  course  alone, 
The  wider  world,  and  learnt  what's  now  unknown, 
Have  made  life  clear,  and  worked  out  each  a  way, — 
We'll  meet  again ;   we  shall  have  much  to  say. 


*"  Irony  is  the  basis  of  Providence." 


MR.  CLOUGH'S  POEMS.  199 

"  With  happier  mood,  and  feelings  born  anew, 
Our  boyhood's  bygone  fancies  we'll  review, 
Talk  o'er  old  talks,  play  as  we  used  to  play, 
And  meet  again,  on  many  a  future  day. 

"Some  day,  which  oft  our  hearts  shall  yearn  to  see, 
In  some  far  year,  though  distant  yet  to  be, 
Shall  we  indeed  —  ye  winds  and  waters,  say !  — 
Meet  yet  again,  upon  some  future  day?" 


WORDSWORTH,  TENNYSON,  AND  BROWNING; 
OB,  PURE,  ORNATE,  AND  GROTESQUE  ART 
IN  ENGLISH  POETRY.* 

(1864.) 

WE  couple  these  two  books  together,  not  because 
of  their  likeness,  for  they  are  as  dissimilar  as  books 
can  be;  nor  on  account  of  the  eminence  of  their 
authors,  for  in  general  two  great  authors  are  too 
much  for  one  essay :  but  because  they  are  the  best 
possible  illustration  of  something  we  have  to  say 
upon  poetical  art, — because  they  may  give  to  it  life 
and  freshness.  The  accident  of  contemporaneous  pub- 
lication has  here  brought  together  two  books  very 
characteristic  of  modern  art,  and  we  want  to  show 
how  they  are  characteristic. 

Neither  English  poetry  nor  English  criticism  have 
ever  recovered  the  eruption  which  they  both  made  at 
the  beginning  of  this  century  into  the  fashionable 
world.  The  poems  of  Lord  Byron  were  received  with 
an  avidity  that  resembles  our  present  avidity  for  sen- 
sation novels,  and  were  read  by  a  class  which  at 
present  reads  little  but  such  novels.  Old  men  who 
remember  those  days  may  be  heard  to  say,  "We 
hear  nothing  of  poetry  nowadays :  it  seems  quite 
down."  And  "down"  it  certainly  is,  if  for  poetry  it 
be  a  descent  to  be  no  longer  the  favorite  excitement 
of  the  more  frivolous  part  of  the  "upper"  world. 
That  stimulating  poetry  is  now  little  read.  A  stray 
schoolboy  may  still  be  detected  in  a  wild  admiration 
for  the  "Giaour"  or  the  "Corsair"  (and  it  is  suitable 

*  Enoch  Arden,  etc.  By  Alfred  Tennyson,  D.  C.  L.,  Poet  Laureate.  —  Dra- 
matis Personae-.  By  Robert  Browning. 

(200) 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  201 

to  his  age,  and  he  should  not  be  reproached  for  it); 
but  the  real  posterity,  the  quiet  students  of  a  past  lit- 
erature, never  read  them  or  think  of  them.  A  line 
or  two  linger  on  the  memory;  a  few  telling  strokes 
of  occasional  and  felicitous  energy  are  quoted,  —  but 
this  is  all.  As  wholes,  these  exaggerated  stories 
were  worthless :  they  taught  nothing,  and  therefore 
they  are  forgotten.  If  nowadays  a  dismal  poet  were, 
like  Byron,  to  lament  the  fact  of  his  birth,  and  to  hint 
that  he  was  too  good  for  the  world,  the  Saturday 
Reviewers  would  say  that  "they  doubted  if  he  was 
too  good " ;  that  "  a  sulky  poet  was  a  questionable  ad- 
dition to  a  tolerable  world";  that  "he  need  not  have 
been  born,  as  far  as  they  were  concerned."  Doubt- 
less, there  is  much  in  Byron  besides  his  dismal  exag- 
geration; but  it  was  that  exaggeration  which  made 
"the  sensation"  which  gave  him  a  wild  moment  of 
dangerous  fame.  As  so  often  happens,  the  cause  of 
his  momentary  fashion  is  the  cause  also  of  his  lasting 
oblivion.  Moore's  former  reputation  was  less  exces- 
sive, yet  it  has  not  been  more  permanent.  The  pret- 
tiness  of  a  few  songs  preserves  the  memory  of  his 
name,  but  as  a  poet  to  read  he  is  forgotten.  There 
is  nothing  to  read  in  him :  no  exquisite  thought,  no 
sublime  feeling,  no  consummate  description  of  true 
character.  Almost  the  sole  result  of  the  poetry  of  that 
time  is  the  harm  which  it  has  done.  It  degraded 
for  a  time  the  whole  character  of  the  art.  It  said 
by  practice  —  by  a  most  efficient  and  successful  prac- 
tice—  that  it  was  the  aim,  the  duty,  of  poets  to  catch 
the  attention  of  the  passing,  the  fashionable,  the  busy 
world.  If  a  poem  "fell  dead/'  it  was  nothing:  it 
was  composed  to  please  the  "London"  of  the  year, 
and  if  that  London  did  not  like  it,  why,  it  had  failed. 
It  fixed  upon  the  minds  of  a  whole  generation,  it 
engraved  in  popular  memory  and  tradition,  a  vague 
conviction  that  poetry  is  but  one  of  the  many  amuse- 
ments for  the  enjoying  classes,  for  the  lighter  hours 
of  all  classes.  The  mere  notion,  the  bare  idea,  that 


202  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

poetry  is  a  deep  thing,  a  teaching  thing,  the  most 
surely  and  wisely  elevating  of  human  things,  is  even 
now  to  the  coarse  public  mind  nearly  unknown. 

As  was  the  fate  of  poetry,  so  inevitably  was  that 
of  criticism.  The  science  that  expounds  which  poetry 
is  good  and  which  is  bad  is  dependent  for  its  popular 
reputation  on  the  popular  estimate  of  poetry  itself. 
The  critics  of  that  day  had  a  day,  which  is  more 
than  can  be  said  for  some  since :  they  professed  to 
tell  the  fashionable  world  in  what  books  it  would 
find  new  pleasure,  and  therefore  they  were  read  by 
the  fashionable  world.  Byron  counted  the  critic  and 
poet  equal.  The  Edinburgh  Review  penetrated  among 
the  young,  and  into  places  of  female  resort  where  it 
does  not  go  now.  As  people  ask,  ' '  Have  you  read 
'Henry  Dunbar'?  and  what  do  you  think  of  it?"  so 
they  then  asked,  "Have  you  read  the  'Giaour'?  and 
what  do  you  think  of  it  ? "  Lord  Jeffrey,  a  shrewd 
judge  of  the  world,  employed  himself  in  telling  it 
what  to  think, — not  so  much  what  it  ought  to  think, 
as  what  at  bottom  it  did  think ;  and  *so,  by  dexterous 
sympathy  with  current  society,  he  gained  contempo- 
rary fame  and  power.  Such  fame  no  critic  must 
hope  for  now.  His  articles  will  not  penetrate  where 
the  poems  themselves  do  not  penetrate.  When  poetry 
was  noisy,  criticism  was  loud;  now  poetry  is  a  still 
small  voice,  and  criticism  must  be  smaller  and  stiller. 
As  the  function  of  such  criticism  was  limited,  so  was 
its  subject.  For  the  great  and  (as  time  now  proves) 
the  permanent  part  of  the  poetry  of  his  time, — for 
Shelley  and  for  Wordsworth,  —  Lord  Jeffrey  had  but 
one  word.  He  said,  "It  won't  do."  And  it  will  not 
do,  to  amuse  a  drawing-room. 

The  doctrine  that  poetry  is  a  light  amusement  for 
idle  hours,  a  metrical  species  of  sensational  novel, 
did  not  indeed  become  popular  without  gainsayers. 
Thirty  years  ago,  Mr.  Carlyle  most  rudely  contra- 
dicted it.  But  perhaps  this  is  about  all  that  he  has 
done.  He  has  denied,  but  he  has  not  disproved.  He 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  203 

has  contradicted  the  floating  paganism,  but  he  has 
not  founded  the  deep  religion.  All  about  and  around 
us  a  faith  in  poetry  struggles  to  be  extricated,  but  it 
is  not  extricated.  Some  day,  at  the  touch  of  the  true 
word,  the  whole  confusion  will  by  magic  cease;  the 
broken  and  shapeless  notions  will  cohere  and  crystal- 
lize into  a  bright  and  true  theory.  But  this  cannot 
be  yet. 

But  though  no  complete  theory  of  the  poetic  art 
as  yet  be  possible  for  us,  though  perhaps  only  our 
children's  children  will  be  able  to  speak  on  this  sub- 
ject with  the  assured  confidence  which  belongs  to 
accepted  truth,  yet  something  of  some  certainty  may 
be  stated  on  the  easier  elements,  and  something  that 
will  throw  light  on  these  two  new  books.  But  it 
will  be  necessary  to  assign  reasons,  and  the  assign- 
ing of  reasons  is  a  dry  task.  Years  ago,  when  criti- 
cism only  tried  to  show  how  poetry  could  be  made  a 
good  amusement,  it  was  not  impossible  that  criticism 
itself  should  be  amusing.  But  now  it  must  at  least 
be  serious,  for  we  believe  that  poetry  is  a  serious 
and  a  deep  thing. 

There  should  be  a  word  in  the  language  of  liter- 
ary art  to  express  what  the  word  "picturesque"  ex- 
presses for  the  fine  arts.  Picturesque  means  fit  to 
be  put  into  a  picture ;  we  want  a  word  literatesque, 
"fit  to  be  put  into  a  book."  An  artist  goes  through 
a  hundred  different  country  scenes,  rich  with  beau- 
ties, charms,  and  merits,  but  he  does  not  paint  any 
of  them.  He  leaves  them  alone  ;  he  idles  on  till  he 
finds  the  hundred-and-first,  —  a  scene  which  many 
observers  would  not  think  much  of,  but  which  he 
knows  by  virtue  of  his  art  will  look  well  on  canvas, 
—  and  this  he  paints  and  preserves.  Susceptible  ob- 
servers though  not  artists  feel  this  quality  too :  they 
say  of  a  scene,  "How  picturesque!"  meaning  by  this 
a  quality  distinct  from  that  of  beauty  or  sublimity 
or  grandeur,  —  meaning  to  speak  not  only  of  the  scene 
as  it  is  in  itself,  but  also  of  its  fitness  for  imitation 


204  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

by  art ;  meaning  not  only  that  it  is  good,  but  that 
its  goodness  is  such  as  ought  to  be  transferred  to 
paper ;  meaning  not  simply  that  it  fascinates,  but 
also  that  its  fascination  is  such  as  ought  to  be  cop- 
ied by  man.  A  fine  and  insensible  instinct  has  put 
language  to  this  subtle  use :  it  expresses  an  idea  with- 
out which  fine-art  criticism  could  not  go  on ;  and  it 
is  very  natural  that  the  language  of  pictorial  art 
should  be  better  supplied  with  words  than  that  of  lit- 
erary criticism,  for  the  eye  was  used  before  the  mind, 
and  language  embodies  primitive  sensuous  ideas  long 
ere  it  expresses  or  need  express  abstract  and  literary 
ones. 

The  reason  why  a  landscape  is  ''picturesque"  is 
often  said  to  be,  that  such  landscape  represents  an 
"idea."  But  this  explanation,  though  in  the  minds 
of  some  who  use  it  it  is  near  akin  to  the  truth,  fails 
to  explain  that  truth  to  those  who  did  not  know  it 
before;  the  word  "idea"  is  so  often  used  in  these 
subjects  when  people  do  not  know  anything  else  to 
say,  it  represents  so  often  a  kind  of  intellectual  insol- 
vency when  philosophers  are  at  their  wits'  end,  that 
shrewd  people  will  never  readily  on  any  occasion  give 
it  credit  for  meaning  anything.  A  wise  explainer 
must  therefore  look  out  for  other  words  to  convey 
what  he  has  to  say.  Landscapes,  like  everything 
else  in  nature,  divide  themselves  as  we  look  at  them 
into  a  sort  of  rude  classification.  We  go  down  a 
river,  for  example,  and  we  see  a  hundred  landscapes 
on  both  sides  of  it,  resembling  one  another  in  much, 
yet  differing  in  something;  with  trees  here,  and  a 
farm-house  there,  and  shadows  on  one  side,  and  a 
deep  pool  far  on,  —  a  collection  of  circumstances 
most  familiar  in  themselves,  but  making  a  perpet- 
ual novelty  by  the  magic  of  their  various  combina- 
tions. We  travel  so  for  miles  and  hours,  and  then  we 
come  to  a  scene  which  also  has  these  various  circum- 
stances and  adjuncts,  but  which  combines  them  best, 
which  makes  the  best  whole  of  them,  which  shows 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  205 

them  in  their  best  proportion  at  a  single  glance  be- 
fore the  eye.  Then  we  say,  "This  is  the  place  to 
paint  the  river :  this  is  the  picturesque  point ! "  Or 
if  not  artists  or  critics  of  art,  we  feel  without  analy- 
sis or  examination  that  somehow  this  bend  or  sweep 
of  the  river  shall  in  future  be  the  river  to  us:  that 
it  is  the  image  of  it  which  we  will  retain  in  our 
mind's  eye,  by  which  we  will  remember  it,  which 
we  will  call  up  when  we  want  to  describe  or  think 
of  it.  Some  fine  countries,  some  beautiful  rivers,  have 
not  this  picturesque  quality :  they  give  us  elements 
of  beauty,  but  they  do  not  combine  them  together ; 
we  go  on  for  a  time  delighted,  but  after  a  time  some- 
how we  get  wearied ;  we  feel  that  we  are  taking  in 
nothing  and  learning  nothing;  we  get  no  collected 
image  before  our  mind ;  we  see  the  accidents  and 
circumstances  of  that  sort  of  scenery,  but  the  sum- 
mary scene  we  do  not  see  ;  we  find  disjecta  membra, 
but  no  form ;  various  and  many  and  faulty  approxi- 
mations are  displayed  in  succession,  but  the  absolute 
perfection  in  that  country's  or  river's  scenery — its 
type — is  withheld.  We  go  away  from  such  places 
in  part  delighted,  but  in  part  baffled :  we  have  been 
puzzled  by  pretty  things  ;  we  have  beheld  a  hundred 
different  inconsistent  specimens  of  the  same  sort  of 
beauty,  but  the  rememberable  idea,  the  full  develop- 
ment, the  characteristic  individuality  of  it,  we  have 
not  seen. 

We  find  the  same  sort  of  quality  in  all  parts  of 
painting.  We  see  a  portrait  of  a  person  we  know, 
and  we  say,  "It  is  like — yes,  like,  of  course,  but  it 
is  not  the  man";  we  feel  it  could  not  be  any  one 
else,  but  still,  somehow  it  fails  to  bring  home  to  us 
the  individual  as  we  know  him  to  be.  He  is  not 
there.  An  accumulation  of  features  like  his  are 
painted,  but  his  essence  is  not  painted  ;  an  approxi- 
mation more  or  less  excellent  is  given,  but  the  char- 
acteristic expression,  the  typical  form  of  the  man  is 
withheld. 


206  THE   TRAVELERS  INS-.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Literature — the  painting  of  words  —  has  the  same 
quality,  but  wants  the  analogous  word.  The  word 
literatesque  would  mean,  if  we  possessed  it,  that  per- 
fect combination  in  the  subject-matter  of  literature 
which  suits  the  art  of  literature.  We  often  meet 
people  and  say  of  them,  sometimes  meaning  well  and 
sometimes  ill,  "How  well  So-and-so  would  do  in  a 
book ! "  Such  people  are  by  no  means  the  best  peo- 
ple ;  but  they  are  the  most  effective  people,  the  most 
rememberable  people.  Frequently,  when  we  first 
know  them,  we  like  them  because  they  explain  to  us 
so  much  of  our  experience.  We  have  known  many 
people  "like  that,"  in  one  way  or  another,  but  we 
did  not  seem  to  understand  them ;  they  were  nothing 
to  us,  for  their  traits  were  indistinct ;  we  forgot 
them,  for  they  hitched  on  to  nothing  and  we  could 
not  classify  them  :  but  when  we  see  the  type  of  the 
genus,  at  once  we  seem  to  comprehend  its  character; 
the  inferior  specimens  are  explained  by  the  perfect 
embodiment ;  the  approximations  are  definable  when 
we  know  the  ideal  to  which  they  draw  near.  There 
are  an  infinite  number  of  classes  of  human  beings ; 
but  in  each  of  these  classes  there  is  a  distinctive  type 
which,  if  we  could  expand  it  in  words,  would  define 
the  class.  We  cannot  expand  it  in  formal  terms  any 
more  than  a  landscape,  or  a  species  of  landscape ; 
but  we  have  an  art,  an  art  of  words,  which  can  draw 
it.  Travelers  and  others  often  bring  home,  in  addi- 
tion to  their  long  journals,  —  which,  though  so  living 
to  them,  are  so  dead,  so  inanimate,  so  undescriptive 
to  all  else,  —  a  pen-and-ink  sketch,  rudely  done  very 
likely,  but  which,  perhaps  even  the  more  for  the 
blots  and  strokes,  gives  a  distinct  notion,  an  em- 
phatic image,  to  all  who  see  it.  We  say  at  once, 
Notv  we  know  the  sort  of  thing.  The  sketch  has 
hit  the  mind.  True  literature  does  the  same.  It  de- 
scribes sorts,  varieties,  and  permutations,  by  delineat- 
ing the  type  of  each  sort ;  the  ideal  of  each  variety  ; 
the  central,  the  marking  trait  of  each  permutation. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  207 

On  this  account,  the  greatest  artists  of  the  world 
have  ever  shown  an  enthusiasm  for  reality.  To  care 
for  notions  and  abstractions,  to  philosophize,  to  reason 
out  conclusions,  to  care  for  schemes  of  thought,  are 
signs  in  the  artistic  mind  of  secondary  excellence. 
A  Schiller,  a  Euripides,  a  Ben  Jonson  cares  for  ideas, 
—  for  the  parings  of  the  intellect  and  the  distillation 
of  the  mind ;  a  Shakespeare,  a  Homer,  a  Goethe  finds 
his  mental  occupation,  the  true  home  of  his  natural 
thoughts,  in  the  real  world,  —  "which  is  the  world  of 
all  of  us ; "  *  —  where  the  face  of  nature,  the  moving 
masses  of  men  and  women,  are  ever  changing,  ever 
multiplying,  ever  mixing  one  with  the  other.  The 
reason  is  plain :  the  business  of  the  poet,  of  the  artist, 
is  with  types;  and  those  types  are  mirrored  in  reality. 
As  a  painter  must  not  only  have  a  hand  to  execute, 
but  an  eye  to  distinguish,  —  as  he  must  go  here  and 
there  through  the  real  world  to  catch  the  picturesque 
man,  the  picturesque  scene,  which  is  to  live  on  his 
canvas,  —  so  the  poet  must  find  in  that  reality  the 
literatesque  man,  the  literatesque  scene,  which  nature 
intends  for  him,  and  which  will  live  in  his  page. 
Even  in  reality  he  will  not  find  this  type  complete, 
or  the  characteristics  perfect;  but  there  he  will  find 
at  least  something,  some  hint,  some  intimation,  some 
suggestion :  whereas,  in  the  stagnant  home  of  his  own 
thoughts  he  will  find  nothing  pure,  nothing  as  it  is, 
nothing  which  does  not  bear  his  own  mark,  which  is 
not  somehow  altered  by  a  mixture  with  himself. 

The  first  conversation  of  Goethe  and  Schiller  illus- 
trates this  conception  of  the  poet's  art.  Goethe  was 
at  that  time  prejudiced  against  Schiller,  we  must  re- 
member, partly  from  what  he  considered  the  outrages 
of  the  "Robbers,"  partly  because  of  the  philosophy  of 
Kant.  Schiller's  "Essay  on  Grace  and  Dignity,"  he 
tells  us, 

"Was  yet  less  of  a  kind  to  reconcile  me.  The  philosophy  of 
Kant,  which  exalts  the  dignity  of  mind  so  highly  while  appear- 
ing to  restrict  it,  Schiller  had  joyfully  embraced :  it  unfolded  the 

*  Wordsworth,  "Prelude,"  Book  li. 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


extraordinary  qualities  which  Nature  had  implanted  in  him;  and 
in  the  lively  feeling  of  freedom  and  self-direction,  he  showed  him- 
self unthankful  to  the  Great  Mother,  who  surely  had  not  acted  like 
a  stepdame  towards  him.  Instead  of  viewing  her  as  self-subsisting, 
as  producing  with  a  living  force,  and  according  to  appointed  laws, 
alike  the  highest  and  the  lowest  of  her  works,  he  took  her  up 
under  the  aspect  of  some  empirical  native  qualities  of  the  human 
mind.  Certain  harsh  passages  I  could  even  directly  apply  to  my- 
self:  they  exhibited  my  confession  of  faith  in  a  false  light;  and  I 
felt  that  if  written  without  particular  attention  to  me,  they  were 
still  worse,  for  in  that  case  the  vast  chasm  which  lay  between  us 
gaped  but  so  much  the  more  distinctly." 

After  a  casual  meeting  at  a  Society  for  Natural 
History,  they  walked  home,  and  Goethe  proceeds:— 

"We  reached  his  house;  the  talk  induced  me  to  go  in.  I  then 
expounded  to  him,  with  as  much  vivacity  as  possible,  the  '  Meta- 
morphosis of  Plants '  * ;  drawing  out  on  paper,  with  many  charac- 
teristic strokes,  a  symbolic  plant  for  him,  as  I  proceeded.  He  heard 
and  saw  all  this,  with  much  interest  and  distinct  comprehension ; 
but  when  I  had  done,  he  shook  his  head  and  said,  'This  is  no 
experiment,  this  is  an  idea.'  I  stopped  with  some  degree  of  irri- 
tation ;  for  the  point  which  separated  us  was  most  luminously 
marked  by  this  expression.  The  opinions  in  'Dignity  and  Grace' 
again  occurred  to  me;  the  old  grudge  was  just  awakening:  but  I 
smothered  it,  and  merely  said  '  I  was  happy  to  find  that  I  had  got 
ideas  without  knowing  it, — nay,  that  I  saw  them  before  my  eyes.' 

"Schiller  had  much  more  prudence  and  dexterity  of  manage- 
ment than  I ;  he  was  also  thinking  of  his  periodical  the  '  Horen ' 
about  this  time,  and  of  course  rather  wished  to  attract  than  repel 
me.  Accordingly,  he  answered  me  like  an  accomplished  Kantite ; 
and  as  my  stiff-necked  Realism  gave  occasion  to  many  contradic- 
tions, much  battling  took  place  between  us,  and  at  last  a  truce,  in 
which  neither  party  would  consent  to  yield  the  victory,  but  each 
held  himself  invincible.  Positions  like  the  following  grieved  me  to 
the  very  soul :  How  can  there  ever  be  an  experiment  that  shall  corre- 
spond with  an  idea  ?  The  specific  quality  of  an  idea  is,  that  no  exper- 
iment can  reach  it  or  agree  with  it.  Yet  if  he  held  as  an  idea  the 


*"A  curious  physiologico-botanical  theory  by  Goethe,  which  appears  to 
be  entirely  unknown  in  this  country :  though  several  eminent  Continental 
botanists  have  noticed  it  with  commendation.  It  is  explained  at  considera- 
ble length  in  this  same  Morphologic.'"  —  Nute  by  Carlyle. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  209 

same  thing  which  I  looked  upon  as  an  experiment,  there  must  cer- 
tainly, I  thought,  be  some  community  between  us, —  some  ground 
whereon  both  of  us  might  meet ! "  * 

With  Goethe's  natural  history,  or  with  Kant's  phi- 
losophy, we  have  here  no  concern ;  but  we  can  com- 
bine the  expressions  of  the  two  great  poets  into  a 
nearly  complete  description  of  poetry.  The  "symbolic 
plant "  is  the  type  of  which  we  speak ;  the  ideal  at 
which  inferior  specimens  aim;  the  class  characteristic 
in  which  they  all  share,  but  which  none  shows  forth 
fully.  Goethe  was  right  in  searching  for  this  in  re- 
ality and  nature;  Schiller  was  right  in  saying  that  it 
was  an  "idea,"  a  transcending  notion  to  which  ap- 
proximations could  be  found  in  experience,  but  only 
approximations, —  which  could  not  be  found  there  it- 
self. Goethe,  as  a  poet,  rightly  felt  the  primary  neces- 
sity of  outward  suggestion  and  experience ;  Schiller, 
as  a  philosopher,  rightly  felt  its  imperfection. 

But  in  these  delicate  matters  it  is  easy  to  misap- 
prehend. There  is  undoubtedly  a  sort  of  poetry  which 
is  produced,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  author's  mind. 
The  description  of  the  poet's  own  moods  and  feelings 
is  a  common  sort  of  poetry, —  perhaps  the  commonest 
sort.  But  the  peculiarity  of  such  cases  is,  that  the 
poet  does  not  describe  himself  as  himself ;  autobiogra- 
phy is  not  his  object :  he  takes  himself  as  a  specimen 
of  human  nature ;  he  describes,  not  himself,  but  a  dis- 
tillation of  himself ;  he  takes  such  of  his  moods  as  are 
most  characteristic,  as  most  typify  certain  moods  of 
certain  men,  or  certain  moods  of  all  men ;  he  chooses 
preponderant  feelings  of  special  sorts  of  men,  or  occa- 
sional feelings  of  men  of  all  sorts :  but  with  whatever 
other  difference  and  diversity,  the  essence  is  that 
such  self-describing  poets  describe  what  is  in  them, 
but  not  peculiar  to  them,  —  what  is  generic,  not  what 
is  special  and  individual.  Gray's  "Elegy"  describes 
a  mood  which  Gray  felt  more  than  other  men,  but 
which  most  others,  perhaps  all  others,  feel  too.  It  is 
more  popular,  perhaps,  than  any  [other]  English  poem, 

*  Appendix  to  Carlyle's  "Life  of  Schiller,"  Note  C. 
VOL.  I.  — 14 


210        THE  TRAVELERS  IXS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

because  that  sort  of  feeling  is  the  most  diffused  of 
high  feelings,  and  because  Gray  added  to  a  singular 
nicety  of  fancy  a  habitual  proneness  to  a  contem- 
plative—  a  discerning  but  unbiased — meditation  on 
death  and  on  life.  Other  poets  cannot  hope  for  such 
success:  a  subject  so  popular,  so  grave,  so  wise,  and 
yet  so  suitable  to  the  writer's  nature,  is  hardly  to 
be  found.  But  the  same  ideal,  the  same  unautobio- 
graphical  character,  is  to  be  found  in  the  writings  of 
meaner  men.  Take  sonnets  of  Hartley  Coleridge,  for 
example:  — 

i. 

To  A  FRIEND. 

"When  we  were  idlers  with  the  loitering  rills, 
The  need  of  human  love  we  little  noted: 
Our  love  was  nature ;  and  the  peace  that  floated 
On  the  white  mist,  and  dwelt  upon  the  hills, 
To  sweet  accord  subdued  our  wayward  wills: 
One  soul  was  ours,  one  mind,  one  heart  devoted,— 
That,  wisely  doting,  asked  not  why  it  doted, — 
And  ours  the  unknown  joy,  which  knowing  kills. 
But  now  I  find  how  dear  thou  wert  to  me ; 

That  man  is  more  than  half  of  nature's  treasure, 
Of  that  fair  Beauty  which  no  eye  can  see, 
Of  that  sweet  music  which  no  ear  can  measure : 
And  now  the  streams  may  sing  for  others'  pleasure, 
The  hills  sleep  on  in  their  eternity. 

n. 

To  THE  SAME. 
"In  the  great  city  we  are  met  again, 

"Where  many  souls  there  are  that  breathe  and  die 
Scarce  knowing  more  of  nature's  potency 
Than  what  they  learn  from  heat  or  cold  or  rain, 
The  sad  vicissitude  of  weary  pain ; 
For  busy  man  is  lord  of  ear  and  eye, 
And  what  hath  nature  but  the  vast,  void  sky, 
And  the  thronged  river  toiling  to  the  main? 
Oh !  say  not  so,  for  she  shall  have  her  part 

In  every  smile,  in  every  tear  that  falls, 
And  she  shall  hide  her  in  the  secret  heart, 
Where  love  persuades  and  sterner  duty  calls; 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  211 

But  worse  it  were  than  death  or  sorrow's  smart, 
To  live  without  a  friend  within  these  walls. 

in. 
To  THE  SAME. 

""We  parted  on  the  mountains,  as  two  streams 

From  one  clear  spring  pursue  their  several  ways : 
And  thy  fleet  course  hath  been  through  many  a  maze 

In  foreign  lands,  where  silvery  Padus  gleams 

To  that  delicious  sky  whose  glowing  beams 
Brightened  the  tresses  that  old  poets  praise ; 
Where  Petrarch's  patient  love  and  artful  lays, 

And  Ariosto's  song  of  many  themes, 

Moved  the  soft  air.     But  I,  a  lazy  brook, 
As  close  pent  up  within  my  native  dell, 

Have  crept  along  from  nook  to  shady  nook, 

Where  flow'rets  blow  and  whispering  Naiads  dwell. 

Yet  now  we  meet  that  parted  were  so  wide, 

O'er  rough  and  smooth  to  travel  side  by  side." 

The  contrast  of  instructive  and  enviable  locomotion 
with  refining  but  instructive  meditation  is  not  special 
and  peculiar  to  these  two,  but  general  and  universal. 
It  was  set  down  by  Hartley  Coleridge  because  he  was 
the  most  meditative  and  refining  of  men. 

"What  sort  of  literatesque  types  are  fit  to  be  de- 
scribed in  the  sort  of  literature  called  poetry  is  a  mat- 
ter on  which  much  might  be  written.  Mr.  Arnold, 
some  years  since,  put  forth  a  theory  that  the  art  of 
poetry  could  only  delineate  great  actions.  But  though, 
rightly  interpreted  and  understood,  —  using  the  word 
"action"  so  as  to  include  high  and  sound  activity 
in  contemplation,  —  this  definition  may  suit  the  high- 
est poetry,  it  certainly  cannot  be  stretched  to  include 
many  inferior  sorts  and  even  many  good  sorts.  No- 
body in  their  senses  would  describe  Gray's  "Elegy" 
as  the  delineation  of  a  "great  action":  some  kinds 
of  mental  contemplation  may  be  energetic  enough  to 
deserve  this  name,  but  Gray  would  have  been  fright- 
ened at  the  very  word.  He  loved  scholar-like  calm 
and  quiet  inaction  ;  his  very  greatness  depended  on 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S   BAGEHOT. 


his  not  acting,  on  his  "wise  passiveness,"  on  his  in- 
dulging the  grave  idleness  which  so  well  appreciates 
so  much  of  human  life.  But  the  best  answer  [to]  — 
the  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  —  Mr.  Arnold's  doctrine 
is  the  mutilation  which  it  has  caused  him  to  make  of 
his  own  writings.  It  has  forbidden  him,  he  tells  us, 
to  reprint  "Empedocles," — a  poem  undoubtedly  contain- 
ing defects  and  even  excesses,  but  containing  also 
these  lines  :  — 

"And  yet  what  days  were  those,  Parmenides  ! 
When  we  were  young,  when  we  could  number  friends 
In  all  the  Italian  cities  like  ourselves, 
When  with  elated  hearts  we  joined  your  train, 
Ye  sun-born  virgins !  on  the  road  of  Truth. 
Then  we  could  still  enjoy ;  then  neither  thought 
Nor  outward  things  were  closed  and  dead  to  us, 
But  we  received  the  shock  of  mighty  thoughts 
On  simple  minds  with  a  pure  natural  joy  ; 
And  if  the  sacred  load  oppressed  our  brain, 
We  had  the  power  to  feel  the  pressure  eased, 
The  brow  unbound,  the  thoughts  flow  free  again, 
In  the  delightful  commerce  of  the  world. 
We  had  not  lost  our  balance  then,  nor  grown 
Thought's  slaves,  and  dead  to  every  natural  joy. 
The  smallest  thing  could  give  us  pleasure  then  : 

The  sports  of  the  country  people ; 

A  flute  note  from  the  woods ; 

Sunset  over  the  sea : 

Seed-time  and  harvest ; 

The  reapers  in  the  corn ; 

The  vine-dresser  in  his  vineyard ; 

The  village  girl  at  her  wheel. 
Fullness  of  life  and  power  of  feeling,  ye 
Are  for  the  happy,  for  the  souls  at  ease, 
Who  dwell  on  a  firm  basis  of  content. 
But  he  who  has  outlived  his  prosperous  days,  — 
But  he  whose  youth  fell  on  a  different  world 
From  that  on  which  his  exiled  age  is  thrown ; 
Whose  mind  was  fed  on  other  food,  was  trained 
By  other  rules  than  are  in  vogue  to-day ; 
Whose  habit  of  thought  is  fixed,  who  will  not  change, 
But  in  a  world  he  loves  not  must  subsist 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  213 

In  ceaseless  opposition,  be  the  guard 
Of  his  own  breast,  fettered  to  what  he  guards, 
That  the  world  win  no  mastery  over  him ; 
Who  has  no  friend,  no  fellow  left,  not  one ; 
Who  has  no  minute's  breathing  space  allowed 
To  nurse  his  dwindling  faculty  of  joy, — 
Joy  and  the  outward  world  must  die  to  him 
As  they  are  dead  to  me." 

What  freak  of  criticism  can  induce  a  man  who 
has  written  such  poetry  as  this  to  discard  it,  and  say 
it  is  not  poetry  ?  Mr.  Arnold  is  privileged  to  speak 
of  his  own  poems,  but  no  other  critic  could  speak  so 
and  not  be  laughed  at. 

We  are  disposed  to  believe  that  no  very  sharp 
definition  can  be  given  —  at  least  in  the  present  state 
of  the  critical  art  —  of  the  boundary  line  between 
poetry  and  other  sorts  of  imaginative  delineation. 
Between  the  undoubted  dominions  of  the  two  kinds 
there  is  a  debatable  land.  Everybody  is  agreed  that 
the  "  CEdipus  at  Colonus"  is  poetry;  every  one  is 
agreed  that  the  wonderful  appearance  of  Mrs.  Veal* 
is  not  poetry :  but  the  exact  line  which  separates 
grave  novels  in  verse,  like  "Aylmer's  Field"  or 
"Enoch  Arden,"  from  grave  novels  not  in  verse,  like 
"Silas  Marner"  or  "Adam  Bede,"  we  own  we  cannot 
draw  with  any  confidence.  Nor,  perhaps,  is  it  very 
important :  whether  a  narrative  is  thrown  into  verse 
or  not  certainly  depends  in  part  on  the  taste  of  the 
age,  and  in  part  on  its  mechanical  helps.  Verse  is 
the  only  mechanical  help  to  the  memory  in  rude 
times  ;  and  there  is  little  writing  till  a  cheap  some- 
thing is  found  to  write  upon,  and  a  cheap  something 
to  write  with.  Poetry  —  verse,  at  least  —  is  the  litera- 
ture of  all  work  in  early  ages :  it  is  only  later  ages 
which  write  in  what  they  think  a  natural  and  simple 
prose.  There  are  other  casual  influences  in  the  mat- 
ter too ;  but  they  are  not  material  now.  We  need  only 
say  here  that  poetry,  because  it  has  a  more  marked 
rhythm  than  prose,  must  be  more  intense  in  meaning 

*De  Foe's. 


214        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  more  concise  in  style  than  prose.  People  ex- 
pect a  "marked  rhythm"  to  imply  something  worth 
marking ;  if  it  fails  to  do  so  they  are  disappointed. 
They  are  displeased  at  the  visible  waste  of  a  power- 
ful instrument:  they  call  it  "doggerel,"  and  rightly 
call  it;  for  the  metrical  expression  of  full  thought 
and  eager  feeling,  the  burst  of  meter,  incident  to 
high  imagination  should  not  be  wasted  on  petty  mat- 
ters which  prose  does  as  well,  —  which  it  does  better, 
which  it  suits  by  its  very  limpness  and  weakness, 
whose  small  changes  it  follows  more  easily  and  to 
whose  lowest  details  it  can  fully  and  without  effort 
degrade  itself.  Verse,  too,  should  be  more  concise;  for 
long-continued  rhythm  tends  to  jade  the  mind,  just 
as  brief  rhythm  tends  to  attract  the  attention.  Po- 
etry should  be  memorable  and  emphatic,  intense,  and 
soon  over. 

The  great  divisions  of  poetry,  and  of  all  other  liter- 
ary art,  arise  from  the  different  modes  in  which  these 
types  —  these  characteristic  men,  these  characteristic 
feelings  —  may  be  variously  described.  There  are 
three  principal  modes  which  we  shall  attempt  to  de- 
scribe :  the  pure,  which  is  sometimes,  but  not  very 
wisely,  called  the  "classical";  the  ornate,  which  is 
also  unwisely  called  "  romantic "  ;  and  the  grotesque, 
which  might  be  called  the  "medieval."  We  will 
describe  the  nature  of  these  a  little.  Criticism,  we 
know,  must  be  brief,  —  not,  like  poetry,  because  its 
charm  is  too  intense  to  be  sustained,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, because  its  interest  is  too  weak  to  be  prolonged ; 
but  elementary  criticism,  if  an  evil,  is  a  necessary 
evil:  a  little  while  spent  among  the  simple  principles 
of  art  is  the  first  condition,  the  absolute  prerequisite, 
for  surely  apprehending  and  wisely  judging  the  com- 
plete embodiments  and  miscellaneous  forms  of  actual 
literature. 

The  definition  of  pure  literature  is,  that  it  de- 
scribes the  type  in  its  simplicity  ;  we  mean,  with  the 
exact  amount  of  accessory  circumstance  which  is 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  215 

necessary  to  bring  it  before  the  mind  in  finished  per- 
fection, and  no  more  than  that  amount.  The  type 
needs  some  accessories  from  its  nature  :  a  picturesque 
landscape  does  not  consist  wholly  of  picturesque 
features.  There  is  a  setting  of  surroundings  —  as  the 
Americans  would  say,  of  fixings  —  without  which  the 
reality  is  not  itself.  By  a  traditional  mode  of  speech, 
as  soon  as  we  see  a  picture  in  which  a  complete  effect 
is  produced  by  detail  so  rare  and  so  harmonized  as 
to  escape  us,  we  say,  "How  classical!"  The  whole 
which  is  to  be  seen  appears  at  once  and  through  the 
detail,  but  the  detail  itself  is  not  seen  :  we  do  not 
think  of  that  which  gives  us  the  idea, — we  are  ab- 
sorbed in  the  idea  itself.  Just  so  in  literature  :  the 
pure  art  is  that  which  works  with  the  fewest  strokes, 
—  the  fewest,  that  is,  for  its  purpose  :  for  its  aim  is 
to  call  up  and  bring  home  to  men  an  idea,  a  form, 
a  character ;  and  if  that  idea  be  twisted,  that  form 
be  involved,  that  character  perplexed,  many  strokes 
of  literary  art  will  be  needful.  Pure  art  does  not 
mutilate  its  object :  it  represents  it  as  fully  as  is 
possible  with  the  slightest  effort  which  is  possible ; 
it  shrinks  from  no  needful  circumstances,  as  little 
as  it  inserts  any  which  are  needless.  The  precise 
peculiarity  is  not  merely  that  no  incidental  circum- 
stance is  inserted  which  does  not  tell  on  the  main 
design,  —  no  art  is  fit  to  be  called  art  which  permits 
a  stroke  to  be  put  in  without  an  object, —  but  that 
only  the  minimum  of  such  circumstance  is  inserted 
at  all.  The  form  is  sometimes  said  to  be  bare,  the 
accessories  are  sometimes  said  to  be  invisible,  be- 
cause the  appendages  are  so  choice  that  the  shape 
only  is  perceived. 

The  English  literature  undoubtedly  contains  much 
impure  literature,  —  impure  in  its  style,  if  not  in  its 
meaning  :  but  it  also  contains  one  great,  one  nearly 
perfect  model  of  the  pure  style  in  the  literary  ex- 
pression of  typical  sentiment;  and  one  not  perfect, 
but  gigantic  and  close  approximation  to  perfection 


THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


in  the  pure  delineation  of  objective  character.  "Words- 
worth, perhaps,  comes  as  near  to  choice  purity  of 
style  in  sentiment  as  is  possible ;  Milton,  with  excep- 
tions and  conditions  to  be  explained,  approaches  per- 
fection by  the  strenuous  purity  with  which  he  depicts 
character. 

A  wit  once  said  that  "pretty  women  had  more 
features  than  beautiful  women " ;  and  though  the 
expression  may  be  criticized,  the  meaning  is  correct. 
Pretty  women  seem  to  have  a  great  number  of  at- 
tractive points,  each  of  which  attracts  your  attention, 
and  each  one  of  which  you  remember  afterwards ; 
yet  these  points  have  not  grown  together,  their  fea- 
tures have  not  linked  themselves  into  a  single  in- 
separable whole.  But  a  beautiful  woman  is  a  whole 
as  she  is  :  you  no  more  take  her  to  pieces  than  a 
Greek  statue ;  she  is  not  an  aggregate  of  divisible 
charms,  she  is  a  charm  in  herself.  Such  ever  is  the 
dividing  test  of  pure  art :  if  you  catch  yourself  ad- 
miring its  details,  it  is  defective;  you  ought  to  think 
of  it  as  a  single  whole  which  you  must  remember, 
which  you  must  admire,  which  somehow  subdues  you 
while  you  admire  it,  which  is  a  "possession"  to  you 
"forever." 

Of  course  no  individual  poem  embodies  this  ideal 
perfectly ;  of  course  every  human  word  and  phrase 
has  its  imperfections:  and  if  we  choose  an  instance  to 
illustrate  that  ideal,  the  instance  has  scarcely  a  fair 
chance.  By  contrasting  it  with  the  ideal,  we  suggest 
its  imperfections ;  by  protruding  it  as  an  example,  we 
turn  on  its  defectiveness  the  microscope  of  criticism. 
Yet  these  two  sonnets  of  Wordsworth  may  be  fitly 
read  in  this  place,  not  because  they  are  quite  without 
faults,  or  because  they  are  the  very  best  examples 
of  their  kind  of  style,  but  because  they  are  luminous 
examples :  the  compactness  of  the  sonnet  and  the 
gravity  of  the  sentiment  hedging  in  the  thoughts,  re- 
straining the  fancy,  and  helping  to  maintain  a  single- 
ness of  expression  :  — 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  217 

THE  TROSACHS. 

"There's  not  a  nook  within  this  solemn  pass 

But  were  an  apt  confessional  for  one 

Taught  by  his  summer  spent,  his  autumn  gone, 
That  life  is  but  a  tale  of  morning  grass 
"Withered  at  eve.     From  scenes  of  art  which  chase 

That  thought  away,  turn,  and  with  watchful  eyes 

Feed  it  'mid  nature's  old  felicities, 
Rocks,  rivers,  and  smooth  lakes  more  clear  than  glass 
Untouched,  unbreathed  upon.     Thrice  happy  quest, 

If  from  a  golden  perch  of  aspen  spray 

(October's  workmanship  to  rival  May) 
The  pensive  warbler  of  the  ruddy  breast 

That  moral  sweeten  by  a  heaven-taught  lay, 
Lulling  the  year,  with  all  its  cares,  to  rest ! " 

COMPOSED  UPON  WESTMINSTER  BRIDGE,  SEPT.  3,  1802. 

"Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair; 

Dull  would  he  be  of  soul,  who  could  pass  by 

A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty  : 
This  city  now  doth  like  a  garment  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning ;  silent,  bare, 

Ships,  towers,  domes,  theaters,  and  temples  lie 

Open  unto  the  fields  and  to  the  sky, 
All  bright  and  glittering  in  the  smokeless  air. 
Never  did  sun  more  beautifully  steep 

In  his  first  splendor,  valley,  rock,  or  hill ; 
Ne'er  saw  I,  never  felt,  a  calm  so  deep  ! 

The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will : 
Dear  God  !  the  very  houses  seem  asleep ; 

And  all  that  mighty  heart  is  lying  still !  " 

Instances  of  barer  style  than  this  may  easily  be 
found,  instances  of  colder  style ;  few  *  instances  of 
purer  style.  Not  a  single  expression  (the  invocation 
in  the  concluding  couplet  of  the  second  sonnet  per- 
haps excepted)  can  be  spared,  yet  not  a  single  expres- 
sion rivets  the  attention.  If,  indeed,  we  take  out  the 

phrase  — 

"The  city  now  doth  like  a  garment  wear 
The  beauty  of  the  morning," 


*Iu  the  original,  "few  better  Instances,"  etc.,  — a  manifest  slip.  —  ED 


218  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  the  description  of  the  brilliant  yellow  of  autumn  — 
"October's  workmanship  to  rival  May," 

they  have  independent  value,  but  they  are  not  no- 
ticed in  the  sonnet  when  we  read  it  through  :  they 
fall  into  place  there,  and  being  in  their  place,  are 
not  seen.  The  great  subjects  of  the  two  sonnets  — 
the  religious  aspect  of  beautiful  but  grave  nature, 
the  religious  aspect  of  a  city  about  to  awaken  and 
be  alive  —  are  the  only  ideas  left  in  our  mind.  To 
Wordsworth  has  been  vouchsafed  the  last  grace  of 
the  self -denying  artist :  you  think  neither  of  him 
nor  his  style,  but  you  cannot  help  thinking  of  —  you 
must  recall  —  the  exact  phrase,  the  very  sentiment 
he  wished. 

Milton's  purity  is  more  eager.  In  the  most  ex- 
citing parts  of  Wordsworth  —  and  these  sonnets  are 
not  very  exciting  —  you  always  feel,  you  never  for- 
get, that  what  you  have  before  you  is  the  excite- 
ment of  a  recluse.  There  is  nothing  of  the  stir  of 
life ;  nothing  of  the  brawl  of  the  world.  But  Milton, 
though  always  a  scholar  by  trade,  though  solitary 
in  old  age,  was  through  life  intent  on  great  affairs, 
lived  close  to  great  scenes,  watched  a  revolution,  and 
if  not  an  actor  in  it,  was  at  least  secretary  to  the 
actors.  He  was  familiar  —  by  daily  experience  and 
habitual  sympathy — with  the  earnest  debate  of  ar- 
duous questions,  on  which  the  life  and  death  of  the 
speakers  certainly  depended,  on  which  the  weal  or 
woe  of  the  country  perhaps  depended.  He  knew  how 
profoundly  the  individual  character  of  the  speakers 
—  their  inner  and  real  nature  —  modifies  their  opin- 
ion on  such  questions ;  he  knew  how  surely  that  na- 
ture will  appear  in  the  expression  of  them.  This 
great  experience,  fashioned  by  a  fine  imagination, 
gives  to  the  debate  of  the  Satanic  Council  in  Pan- 
demonium its  reality  and  its  life.  It  is  a  debate 
in  the  Long  Parliament ;  and  though  the  theme  of 
"Paradise  Lost"  obliged  Milton  to  side  with  the 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  219 

monarchical  element  in  the  universe,  his  old  habits 
•are  often  too  much  for  him,  and  his  real  sympathy 
—  the  impetus  and  energy  of  his  nature  —  side  with 
the  rebellious  element.  For  the  purposes  of  art  this 
is  much  better.  Of  a  court,  a  poet  can  make  but 
little ;  of  a  heaven,  he  can  make  very  little :  but 
of  a  courtly  heaven,  such  as  Milton  conceived,  he 
can  make  nothing  at  all.  The  idea  of  a  court  and 
the  idea  of  a  heaven  are  so  radically  different,  that 
a  distinct  combination  of  them  is  always  grotesque 
and  often  ludicrous.  "Paradise  Lost,"  as  a  whole,  is 
radically  tainted  by  a  vicious  principle.  It  professes 
to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  to  account  for 
sin  and  death ;  and  it  tells  you  that  the  whole  origi- 
nated in  a  political  event,  —  in  a  court  squabble  as  to 
a  particular  act  of  patronage,  and  the  due  or  undue 
promotion  of  an  eldest  son.  Satan  may  have  been 
wrong,  but  on  Milton's  theory  he  had  an  arguable 
case  at  least.  There  was  something  arbitrary  in 
the  promotion  ;  there  were  little  symptoms  of  a  job  : 
in  "Paradise  Lost"  it  is  always  clear  that  the  devils 
are  the  weaker,  but  it  is  never  clear  that  the  angels 
are  the  better.  Milton's  sympathy  and  his  imagina- 
tion slip  back  to  the  Puritan  rebels  whom  he  loved, 
and  desert  the  courtly  angels  whom  he  could  not 
love,  although  he  praised  them.  There  is  no  won- 
der that  Milton's  hell  is  better  than  his  heaven,  for 
he  hated  officials  and  he  loved  rebels  :  he  employs 
his  genius  below,  and  accumulates  his  pedantry 
above.  On  the  great  debate  in  Pandsemonium  all  his 
genius  is  concentrated.  The  question  is  very  practi- 
cal ;  it  is,  "  What  are  we  devils  to  do,  now  we  have 
lost  heaven?"  Satan,  who  presides  over  and  manipu- 
lates the  assembly  ;  Moloch, 

"The  fiercest  spirit 
That  fought  in  heaven,  now  fiercer  by  despair," 

who  wants  to  fight  again  ;  Belial,    "the  man  of  the 
world,"    who    does     not    want    to    fight    any    more; 


THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


Mammon,  who  is  for  commencing  an  industrial  career ; 
Beelzebub,  the  official  statesman, 

"Deep  on  his  front  engraven, 
Deliberation  sat  and  public  care," 

who,   at    Satan's    instance,   proposes   the    invasion  of 
earth,  —  are  as  distinct  as  so  many  statues. 

Even  Belial,  "the  man  of  the  world,"  the  sort  of 
man  with  whom  Milton  had  least  sympathy,  is  per- 
fectly painted.  An  inferior  artist  would  have  made 
the  actor  who  "counseled  ignoble  ease  and  peace- 
ful sloth "  a  degraded  and  ugly  creature  ;  but  Milton 
knew  better.  He  knew  that  low  notions  require  a 
better  garb  than  high  notions.  Human  nature  is 
not  a  high  thing,  but  at  least  it  has  a  high  idea  of 
itself :  it  will  not  accept  mean  maxims  unless  they 
are  gilded  and  made  beautiful.  A  prophet  in  goat- 
skin may  cry  "Repent,  repent,"  but  it  takes  "purple 
and  fine  linen"  to  be  able  to  say  "Continue  in  your 
sins."  The  world  vanquishes  with  its  speciousness 
and  its  show,  and  the  orator  who  is  to  persuade  men 
to  worldliness  must  have  a  share  in  them.  Milton 
well  knew  this :  after  the  warlike  speech  of  the 
fierce  Moloch,  he  introduces  a  brighter  and  a  more 
graceful  spirit : — 

"He  ended  frowning,  and  his  look  denounced 
Desperate  revenge,  and  battle  dangerous 
To  less  than  gods.     On  th'  other  side  up  rose 
Belial,  in  act  more  graceful  and  humane : 
A  fairer  person  lost  not  heaven ;  he  seemed 
For  dignity  composed  and  high  exploit: 
But  all  was  false  and  hollow,  though  his  tongue 
Dropt  manna,  and  could  make  the  worse  appear 
The  better  reason,  to  perplex  and  dash 
Maturest  counsels,  —  for  his  thoughts  were  low  ; 
To  vice  industrious,  but  to  nobler  deeds 
Timorous  and  slothful :  yet  he  pleased  the  ear, 
And  with  persuasive  accent  thus  began." 

He  does  not  begin  like  a  man  with  a  strong  case, 
but  like  a  man  with  a  weak  case :  he  knows  that  the 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  221 

pride  of  human  nature  is  irritated  by  mean  advice, 
and  though  he  may  probably  persuade  men  to  take 
it,  he  must  carefully  apologize  for  giving  it.  Here, 
as  elsewhere,  though  the  formal  address  is  to  devils, 
the  real  address  is  to  men ;  to  the  human  nature 
which  we  know,  not  to  the  fictitious  diabolic  nature 
we  do  not  know :  — 

"I  should  be  much  for  open  war,  O  peers, 
As  not  behind  in  hate,  if  what  was  urged 
Main  reason  to  persuade  immediate  war 
Did  not  dissuade  me  most,  and  seem  to  cast 
Ominous  conjecture  on  the  whole  success ; 
When  he  who  most  excels  in  fact  of  arms, 
In  what  he  counsels  and  in  what  excels 
Mistrustful,  grounds  his  courage  on  despair 
And  utter  dissolution,  as  the  scope 
Of  all  his  aim,  after  some  dire  revenge. 
First,  what  revenge  ?    The  towers  of  heaven  are  filled 
With  armed  watch,  that  render  all  access 
Impregnable ;  oft  on  the  bordering  deep 
Encamp  their  legions,  or  with  obscure  wing 
Scout  far  and  wide  into  the  realm  of  night, 
Scorning  surprise.     Or  could  we  break  our  way 
By  force,  and  at  our  heels  all  hell  should  rise 
With  blackest  insurrection,  to  confound 
Heaven's  purest  light,  yet  our  Great  Enemy 
All  incorruptible  would  on  his  throne 
Sit  unpolluted ;  and  th'  ethereal  mold, 
Incapable  of  stain,  would  soon  expel 
Her  mischief,  and  purge  off  the  baser  fire, 
Victorious.     Thus  repulsed,  our  final  hope 
Is  flat  despair  :  we  must  exasperate 
Th'  Almighty  Victor  to  spend  all  his  rage, 
And  that  must  end  us  ;  that  must  be  our  cure,  — 
To  be  no  more  !     Sad  cure ;  for  who  would  lose, 
Though  full  of  pain,  this  intellectual  being, 
Those  thoughts  that  wander  through  eternity, 
To  perish  rather,  swallowed  up  and  lost 
In  the  wide  womb  of  uncreated  night, 
Devoid  of  sense  and  motion  ?    And  who  knows, 
Let  this  be  good,  whether  our  angry  Foe 
Can  give  it,  or  will  ever?    How  he  can 


222        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Is  doubtful ;  that  he  never  will,  is  sure. 
Will  he,  so  wise,  let  loose  at  once  his  ire, 
Belike  through  impotence  or  unaware, 
To  give  his  enemies  their  wish,  and  end 
Them  in  his  anger,  whom  his  anger  saves 
To  punish  endless?    Wherefore  cease  we  then? 
Say  they  who  counsel  war,  '  We  are  decreed, 
Reserved,  and  destined  to  eternal  woe : 
Whatever  doing,  what  can  we  suffer  more, 
What  can  we  suffer  worse?'    Is  this  then  worst, 
Thus  sitting,  thus  consulting,  thus  in  arms?" 

And  so  on. 

Mr.  Pitt  knew  this  speech  by  heart,  and  Lord 
Macaulay  has  called  it  incomparable ;  and  these 
judges  of  the  oratorial  art  have  well  decided.  A 
mean  foreign  policy  cannot  be  better  defended :  its 
sensibleness  is  effectually  explained,  and  its  tameness 
as  much  as  possible  disguised. 

But  we  have  not  here  to  do  with  the  excellence 
of  Belial's  policy,  but  with  the  excellence  of  his 
speech ;  and  with  that  speech  in  a  peculiar  manner. 
This  speech,  taken  with  the  few  lines  of  description 
with  which  Milton  introduces  it,  embodies,  in  as 
short  a  space  as  possible,  with  as  much  perfection 
as  possible,  the  delineation  of  a  type  of  character 
common  at  all  times,  dangerous  in  many  times;  sure 
to  come  to  the  surface  in  moments  of  difficulty,  and 
never  more  dangerous  than  then.  As  Milton  de- 
scribes it,  it  is  one  among  several  typical  characters 
which  will  ever  have  their  place  in  great  councils, 
which  will  ever  be  heard  at  important  decisions, 
which  are  part  of  the  characteristic  and  inalienable 
whole  of  this  statesmanlike  world.  The  debate  in 
Pandsemonium  is  a  debate  among  these  typical  char- 
acters at  the  greatest  conceivable  crisis,  and  with 
adjuncts  of  solemnity  which  no  other  situation  could 
rival.  It  is  the  greatest  classical  triumph,  the  high- 
est achievement  of  the  pure  style  in  English  liter- 
ature ;  it  is  the  greatest  description  of  the  highest 
and  most  typical  characters,  with  the  most  choice 
circumstances  and  in  the  fewest  words. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  223 

It  is  not  unremarkable  that  we  should  find  in 
Milton  and  in  "Paradise  Lost"  the  best  specimen  of 
pure  style.  Milton  was  a  schoolmaster  in  a  pedantic 
age,  and  there  is  nothing  so  unclassical  —  nothing  so 
impure  in  style  —  as  pedantry.  The  out-of-door  con- 
versational life  of  Athens  was  as  opposed  to  bookish 
scholasticism  as  a  life  can  be.  The  most  perfect 
books  have  been  written  not  by  those  who  thought 
much  of  books,  but  by  those  who  thought  little ;  by 
those  who  were  under  the  restraint  of  a  sensitive 
talking  world,  to  which  books  had  contributed  some- 
thing, and  a  various,  eager  life  the  rest.  Milton  is 
generally  unclassical  in  spirit  where  he  is  learned ; 
and  naturally,  because  the  purest  poets  do  not  over- 
lay their  conceptions  with  book  knowledge,  and  the 
classical  poets,  having  in  comparison  no  books,  were 
under  little  temptation  to  impair  the  purity  of  their 
style  by  the  accumulation  of  their  research.  Over 
and  above  this,  there  is  in  Milton,  and  a  little  in 
Wordsworth  also,  one  defect  which  is  in  the  highest 
degree  faulty  and  unclassical ;  which  mars  the  effect 
and  impairs  the  perfection  of  the  pure  style.  There 
is  a  want  of  spontaneity,  and  a  sense  of  effort.  It 
has  been  happily  said  that  Plato's  words  must  have 
grown  into  their  places.  No  one  would  say  so  of 
Milton,  or  even  of  Wordsworth.  About  both  of  them 
there  is  a  taint  of  duty ;  a  vicious  sense  of  the  good 
man's  task.  Things  seem  right  where  they  are,  but 
they  seem  to  be  put  where  they  are.  Flexibility  is 
essential  to  the  consummate  perfection  of  the  pure 
style,  because  the  sensation  of  the  poet's  efforts  car- 
ries away  our  thoughts  from  his  achievements.  We 
are  admiring  his  labors  when  we  should  be  enjoying 
his  words.  But  this  is  a  defect  in  those  two  writers, 
not  a  defect  in  pure  art.  Of  course  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult to  write  in  few  words  than  to  write  in  many ; 
to  take  the  best  adjuncts,  and  those  only,  for  what 
you  have  to  say,  instead  of  using  all  which  comes  to 
hand :  it  is  an  additional  labor,  if  you  write  verses  in 


224  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 


a  morning,  to  spend  the  rest  of  the  day  in  choosing, 

—  that  is,  in  making  those  verses  fewer.     But  a  per- 
fect artist  in  the  pure  style  is  as  effortless  and  as 
natural  as  in  any   style,  perhaps  is  more   so.     Take 
the  well-known  lines  — 

"There  was  a  little  lawny  islet 
By  anemone  and  violet,    • 

Like  mosaic,  paven ; 
And  its  roof  was  flowers  and  leaves 
Which  the  summer's  breath  enweaves, 
Where  nor  sun  nor  showers  nor  breeze 
Pierce  the  pines  and  tallest  trees, 

Each  a  gem  engraven ; 
Girt  by  many  an  azure  wave 
With  which  the  clouds  and  mountains  pave 

A  lake's  blue  chasm."* 

Shelley   had   many   merits   and   many    defects.     This 
is  not  the  place  for  a  complete  —  or  indeed  for  any 

—  estimate  of  him.     But  one  excellence  is  most  evi- 
dent.    His  words  are  as  flexible  as  any  words;   the 
rhythm  of  some  modulating  air  seems  to  move  them 
into  their  place  without  a  struggle  by  the  poet,  and 
almost  without   his   knowledge.     This   is  the   perfec- 
tion  of   pure  art :   to   embody  typical   conceptions   in 
the  choicest,  the  fewest  accidents ;    to  embody  them 
so  that  each  of  these  accidents  may  produce  its  full 
effect,  and  so  to  embody  them  without  effort. 

The  extreme  opposite  to  this  pure  art  is  what 
may  be  called  ornate  art.  This  species  of  art  aims 
also  at  giving  a  delineation  of  the  typical  idea  in  its 
perfection  and  its  fullness,  but  it  aims  at  so  doing 
in  a  manner  most  different.  It  wishes  to  surround 
the  type  with  the  greatest  number  of  circumstances 
which  it  will  bear.  It  works  not  by  choice  and  selec- 
tion, but  by  accumulation  and  aggregation.  The  idea 
is  not,  as  in  the  pure  style,  presented  with  the  least 
clothing  which  it  will  endure,  but  with  the  richest 
and  most  involved  clothing  that  it  will  admit. 

*" The  Isle." 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  225 

We  are  fortunate  in  not  having  to  hunt  out  of  past 
literature  an  illustrative  specimen  of  the  ornate  style. 
Mr.  Tennyson  has  just  given  one,  admirable  in  itself 
and  most  characteristic  of  the  defects  and  the  merits 
of  this  style.  The  story  of  "Enoch  Arden,"  as  he 
has  enhanced  and  presented  it,  is  a  rich  and  splendid 
composit  of  imagery  and  illustration.  Yet  how  simple 
that  story  is  in  itself !  A  sailor  who  sells  fish  breaks 
his  leg,  gets  dismal,  gives  up  selling  fish,  goes  to 
sea,  is  wrecked  on  a  desert  island,  stays  there  some 
years,  on  his  return  finds  his  wife  married  to  a  miller, 
speaks  to  a  landlady  on  the  subject,  and  dies.  Told 
in  the  pure  and  simple,  the  unadorned  and  classical 
style,  this  story  would  not  have  taken  three  pages ; 
but  Mr.  Tennyson  has  been  able  to  make  it  the  prin- 
cipal, the  largest  tale  in  his  new  volume.  He  has  done 
so  only  by  giving  to  every  event  and  incident  in 
the  volume  an  accompanying  commentary.  He  tells 
a  great  deal  about  the  Torrid  Zone,  which  a  rough 
sailor  like  Enoch  Arden  certainly  would  not  have  per- 
ceived; and  he  gives  to  the  fishing  village,  to  which 
all  the  characters  belong,  a  softness  and  a  fascination 
which  such  villages  scarcely  possess  in  reality. 

The  description  of  the  tropical  island  on  which  the 
sailor  is  thrown  is  an  absolute  model  of  adorned  art : 

"The  mountain  wooded  to  the  peak,  the  lawns 
And  winding  glades  high  up  like  ways  to  heaven, 
The  slender  coco's  drooping  crown  of  plumes, 
The  lightning  flash  of  insect  and  of  bird, 
The  luster  of  the  long  convolvuluses 
That  coiled  around  the  stately  stems,  and  ran 
Even  to  the  limit  of  the  land,  the  glows 
And  glories  of  the  broad  belt  of  the  world,— 
All  these  he  saw ;   but  what  he  fain  had  seen 
He  could  not  see,  —  the  kindly  human  face, 
Nor  ever  hear  a  kindly  voice,  but  heard 
The  myriad  shriek  of  wheeling  ocean-fowl, 
The  league-long  roller  thundering  on  the  reef, 
The  moving  whisper  of  huge  trees  that  branched 
And  blossomed  in  the  zenith,  or  the  sweep 
VOL.  I.— 15 


226  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Of  some  precipitous  rivulet  to  the  wave, 

As  down  the  shore  he  ranged,  or  all  day  long 

Sat  often  in  the  seaward-gazing  gorge, 

A  shipwrecked  sailor,  waiting  for  a  sail : 

No  sail  from  day  to  day,  but  every  day 

The  sunrise  broken  into  scarlet  shafts 

Among  the  palms  and  ferns  and  precipices ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  east ; 

The  blaze  upon  his  island  overhead ; 

The  blaze  upon  the  waters  to  the  west ; 

Then  the  great  stars  that  globed  themselves  in  heaven, 

The  hollower-bellowing  ocean,  and  again 

The  scarlet  shafts  of  sunrise,  —  but  no  sail. " 

No  expressive  circumstances  can  be  added  to  this 
description,  no  enhancing  detail  suggested.  A  much 
less  happy  instance  is  the  description  of  Enoch's  life 
before  he  sailed  :  — 

"While  Enoch  was  abroad  on  wrathful  seas, 
Or  often  journeying  landward ;  for  in  truth 
Enoch's  white  horse,  and  Enoch's  ocean  spoil 
In  ocean-smelling  osier,  and  his  face, 
Eough-reddened  with  a  thousand  winter  gales, 
Not  only  to  the  market-cross  were  known, 
But  in  the  leafy  lanes  behind  the  down, 
Far  as  the  portal-warding  lion-whelp 
And  peacock  yew-tree  of  the  lonely  Hall, 
"Whose  Friday  fare  was  Enoch's  minist'ring. " 

So  much  has  not  often  been  made  of  selling  fish. 
The  essence  of  ornate  art  is  in  this  manner  to  accu- 
mulate round  the  typical  object  everything  which 
can  be  said  about  it,  every  associated  thought  that 
can  be  connected  with  it,  without  impairing  the  es- 
sence of  the  delineation. 

The  first  defect  which  strikes  a  student  of  or- 
nate art  —  the  first  which  arrests  the  mere  reader  of 
it — is  what  is  called  a  want  of  simplicity.  Noth- 
ing is  described  as  it  is;  everything  has  about  it  an 
atmosphere  of  something  else.  The  combined  and 
associated  thoughts,  though  they  set  off  and  heighten 
particular  ideas  and  aspects  of  the  central  and  typical 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  227 

conception,  yet  complicate  it:  a  simple  thing — "a 
primrose  by  the  river's  brim" — is  never  left  by  itself; 
something  else  is  put  with  it,  —  something  not  more 
connected  with  it  than  [the]  "lion-whelp"  and  the 
"peacock  yew-tree"  are  with  the  "fresh  fish  for  sale'' 
that  Enoch  carries  past  them.  Even  in  the  highest 
cases,  ornate  art  leaves  upon  a  cultured  and  delicate 
taste  the  conviction  that  it  is  not  the  highest  art : 
that  it  is  somehow  excessive  and  over-rich;  that  it  is 
not  chaste  in  itself  or  chastening  to  the  mind  that 
sees  it;  that  it  is  in  an  [un] explained  manner  unsat- 
isfactory, "a  thing  in  which  we  feel  there  is  some 
hidden  want ! " 

That  want  is  a  want  of  "definition."  We  must 
all  know  landscapes,  river  landscapes  especially,  which 
are  in  the  highest  sense  beautiful,  which  when  we 
first  see  them  ^give  us  a  delicate  pleasure,  which  in 
some  —  and  these  the  best  —  cases  give  even  a  gentle 
sense  of  surprise  that  such  things  should  be  so  beau- 
tiful,—  and  yet  when  we  come  to  live  in  them,  to 
spend  even  a  few  hours  in  them,  we  seem  stifled  and 
oppressed.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  people  to 
whom  the  sea-shore  is  a  companion,  an  exhilaration ; 
and  not  so  much  for  the  brawl  of  the  shore  as  for 
the  limited  vastness,  the  finite  infinite  of  the  ocean 
as  they  see  it.  Such  people  often  come  home  braced 
and  nerved,  and  if  they  spoke  out  the  truth,  would 
have  only  to  say,  "We  have  seen  the  horizon  line"; 
if  they  were  let  alone,  indeed,  they  would  gaze  on  it 
hour  after  hour,  so  great  to  them  is  the  fascination, 
so  full  the  sustaining  calm,  which  they  gain  fro.m 
that  union  of  form  and  greatness.  To  a  very  infe- 
rior extent, — but  still,  perhaps,  to  an  extent  which 
most  people  understand  better, —  a  common  arch  will 
have  the  same  effect.  A  bridge  completes  a  river 
landscape  :  if  of  the  old  and  many-arched  sort,  it  reg- 
ulates by  a  long  series  of  defined  forms  the  vague  out- 
line of  wood  and  river,  which  before  had  nothing  to 
measure  it ;  if  of  the  new  scientific  sort,  it  introduces 


228  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

still  more  strictly  a  geometrical  element,  —  it  stiffens 
the  scenery,  which  was  before  too  soft,  too  delicate, 
too  vegetable.  Just  such  is  the  effect  of  pure  style 
in  literary  art :  it  calms  by  conciseness.  While  the 
ornate  style  leaves  on  the  mind  a  mist  of  beauty, 
an  excess  of  fascination,  a  complication  of  charm, 
the  pure  style  leaves  behind  it  the  simple,  defined, 
measured  idea,  as  it  is  and  by  itself.  That  which  is 
chaste  chastens;  there  is  a  poised  energy — a  state 
half  thrill  and  half  tranquillity  —  which  pure  art 
gives,  which  no  other  can  give ;  a  pleasure  justified 
as  well  as  felt ;  an  ennobled  satisfaction  at  what 
ought  to  satisfy  us,  and  must  ennoble  us. 

Ornate  art  is  to  pure  art  what  a  painted  statue 
is  to  an  unpainted.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  that 
a  touch  of  color  does  bring  out  certain  parts,  does 
convey  certain  expressions,  does  heighten  certain 
features :  but  it  leaves  on  the  work  as  a  whole  a 
want,  as  we  say,  "of  something,"-  -  a  want  of  that 
inseparable  chasteness  which  clings  to  simple  sculp- 
ture ;  an  impairing  predominance  of  alluring  details, 
which  impairs  our  satisfaction  with  our  own  satisfac- 
tion, which  makes  us  doubt  whether  a  higher  being 
than  ourselves  will  be  satisfied  even  though  we  are 
so.  In  the  very  same  manner,  though  the  rouge  of 
ornate  literature  excites  our  eye,  it  also  impairs  our 
confidence. 

Mr.  Arnold  has  justly  observed  that  this  self- 
justifying,  self-proving  purity  of  style  is  commoner 
in  ancient  literature  than  in  modern  literature,  and 
also  that  Shakespeare  is  not  a  great  or  an  unmixed 
example  of  it.  No  one  can  say  that  he  is.  His 
works  are  full  of  undergrowth,  are  full  of  complex- 
ity, are  not  models  of  style ;  except  by  a  miracle, 
nothing  in  the  Elizabethan  age  could  be  a  model  of 
style  :  the  restraining  taste  of  that  age  was  feebler 
and  more  mistaken  than  that  of  any  other  equally 
great  age.  Shakespeare's  mind  so  teemed  with  crea- 
tion that  he  required  the  most  just,  most  forcible, 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  229 

most  constant  restraint  from  without.  He  most 
needed  to  be  guided  among  poets,  and  he  was  the 
least  and  worst  guided.  As  a  whole,  no  one  can 
call  his  works  finished  models  of  the  pure  style,  or 
of  any  style.  But  he  has  many  passages  of  the  most 
pure  style ;  passages  which  could  be  easily  cited  if 
space  served.  And  we  must  remember  that  the  task 
which  Shakespeare  undertook  was  the  most  difficult 
which  any  poet  has  ever  attempted,  and  that  it  is  a 
task  in  which,  after  a  million  efforts,  every  other 
poet  has  failed.  The  Elizabethan  drama  —  as  Shake- 
speare has  immortalized  it  —  undertakes  to  delineate 
in  five  acts,  under  stage  restrictions,  and  in  mere 
dialogue,  a  whole  list  of  dramatis  personce,  a  set 
of  characters  enough  for  a  modern  novel,  and  with 
the  distinctness  of  a  modern  novel.  Shakespeare  is 
not  content  to  give  two  or  three  great  characters  in 
solitude  and  in  dignity,  like  the  classical  dramatists  : 
he  wishes  to  give  a  whole  party  of  characters  in  the 
play  of  life,  and  according  to  the  nature  of  each. 
He  would  "hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature,"  not  to 
catch  a  monarch  in  a  tragic  posture,  but  a  whole 
group  of  characters  engaged  in  many  actions,  intent 
on  many  purposes,  thinking  many  thoughts.  There 
is  life  enough,  there  is  action  enough,  in  single  plays 
of  Shakespeare  to  set  up  an  ancient  dramatist  for  a 
long  career.  And  Shakespeare  succeeded.  His  char- 
acters, taken  en  masse  and  as  a  whole,  are  as  well 
known  as  any  novelist's  characters  ;  cultivated  men 
know  all  about  them,  as  young  ladies  know  all 
about  Mr.  Trollope's  novels.  But  no  other  dramatist 
has  succeeded  in  such  an  aim.  No  one  else's  char- 
acters are  staple  people  in  English  literature,  hered- 
itary people  whom  every  one  knows  all  about  in 
every  generation.  The  contemporary  dramatists  — 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Ben  Jonson,  Marlowe,  etc. 
—  had  many  merits  ;  some  of  them  were  great  men. 
But  a  critic  must  say  of  them  the  worst  thing  he 
has  to  say:  "They  were  men  who  failed  in  their 


230  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

characteristic  aim ; "  they  attempted  to  describe  numer- 
ous sets  of  complicated  characters,  and  they  failed. 
No  one  of  such  characters,  or  hardly  one,  lives  in  com- 
mon memory;  the  "Faustus"  of  Marlowe,  a  really 
great  idea,  is  not  remembered.  They  undertook  to 
write  what  they  could  not  write, — five  acts  full  of 
real  characters;  and  in  consequence,  the  fine  individ- 
ual things  they  conceived  are  forgotten  by  the  mixed 
multitude,  and  known  only  to  a  few  of  the  few.  Of 
the  Spanish  theater  we  cannot  speak ;  but  there  are 
no  such  characters  in  any  French  tragedy,  —  the 
whole  aim  of  that  tragedy  forbade  it.  Goethe  has 
added  to  literature  a  few  great  characters ;  he  may 
be  said  almost  to  have  added  to  literature  the  idea 
of  "intellectual  creation,"  —  the  idea  of  describing 
the  great  characters  through  the  intellect :  but  he 
has  not  added  to  the  common  stock  what  Shake- 
speare added,  —  a  new  multitude  of  men  and  women, 
and  these  not  in  simple  attitudes,  but  amid  the  most 
complex  parts  of  life,  with  all  their  various  natures 
roused,  mixed,  and  strained.  The  severest  art  must 
have  allowed  many  details,  much  overflowing  cir- 
cumstance, to  a  poet  who  undertook  to  describe  what 
almost  defies  description.  Pure  art  would  have  com- 
manded him  to  use  details  lavishly,  for  only  by  a 
multiplicity  of  such  could  the  required  effect  have 
been  at  all  produced.  Shakespeare  could  accomplish 
it,  for  his  mind  was  a  spring,  an  inexhaustible 
fountain  of  human  nature ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that, 
being  compelled  by  the  task  of  his  time  to  let  the 
fullness  of  his  nature  overflow,  he  sometimes  let  it 
overflow  too  much,  and  covered  with  erroneous  con- 
ceits and  superfluous  images,  characters  and  concep- 
tions which  would  have  been  far  more  justly,  far 
more  effectually  delineated  with  conciseness  and 
simplicity.  But  there  is  an  infinity  of  pure  art  in 
Shakespeare,  although  there  is  a  great  deal  else  also. 
It  will  be  said,  If  ornate  art  be,  as  you  say,  an 
inferior  species  of  art,  why  should  it  ever  be  used  ? 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  231 

If  pure  art  be  the  best  sort  of  art,  why  should  it  not 
always  be  used  ? 

The  reason  is  this  :  Literary  art,  as  we  just  now 
explained,  is  concerned  with  literatesque  characters  in 
literatesque  situations ;  and  the  best  art  is  concerned 
with  the  most  literatesque  characters  in  the  most  lit- 
eratesque situations.  Such  are  the  subjects  of  pure 
art;  it  embodies  with  the  fewest  touches,  and  under 
the  most  select  and  choice  circumstances,  the  highest 
conceptions  :  but  it  does  not  follow  that  only  the  best 
subjects  are  to  be  treated  by  art,  and  then  only  in 
the  very  best  way.  Human  nature  could  not  endure 
such  a  critical  commandment  as  that,  and  it  would 
be  an  erroneous  criticism  which  gave  it.  Any  litera- 
tesque character  may  be  described  in  literature  under 
any  circumstances  which  exhibit  its  literatesqueness. 

The  essence  of  pure  art  consists  in  its  describing 
what  is,  as  it  is  ;  and  this  is  very  well  for  what  can 
bear  it,  but  there  are  many  inferior  things  which 
will  not  bear  it  and  which  nevertheless  ought  to  be 
described  in  books.  A  certain  kind  of  literature 
deals  with  illusions,  and  this  kind  of  literature  has 
given  a  coloring  to  the  name  "romantic."  A  man 
of  rare  genius,  and  even  of  poetical  genius,  has  gone 
so  far  as  to  make  these  illusions  the  true  subject  of 
poetry  —  almost  the  sole  subject :  — 

"AVithout,"  says  Father  Newman  of  one  of  his  characters,*  "be- 
ing himself  a  poet,  he  was  in  the  season  of  poetry,  in  the  sweet 
springtime,  when  the  year  is  most  beautiful  because  it  is  new. 
Novelty  was  beauty  to  a  heart  so  open  and  cheerful  as  his ;  not 
only  because  it  was  novelty,  and  had  its  proper  charm  as  such,  but 
because  when  we  first  see  things  we  see  them  in  a  gay  confusion, 
which  is  a  principal  element  of  the  poetical.  As  time  goes  on,  and 
we  number  and  sort  and  measure  things, — as  we. gain  views, — we 
advance  towards  philosophy  and  truth,  but  we  recede  from  poetry. 

"When  we  ourselves  were  young,  we  once  on  a  time  walked  on 
a  hot  summer  day  from  Oxford  to  Newington, —  a  dull  road,  as  any 

*  Charles  Reding,  in  "Loss  and  Gain,"  Vol.  1.,  Chap.  ill. 


232  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

one  who  has  gone  it  knows,  yet  it  was  new  to  us :  and  we  protest 
to  you,  reader,  believe  it  or  not,  laugh  or  not,  as  you  will,  to  us  it 
seemed  on  that  occasion  quite  touchingly  beautiful ;  and  a  soft  mel- 
ancholy came  over  us,  of  which  the  shadows  fall  even  now,  when 
we  look  back  on  that  dusty,  weary  journey.  And  why  ?  because 
every  object  which  met  us  was  unknown  and  full  of  mystery. 
A  tree  or  two  in  the  distance  seemed  the  beginning  of  a  great 
wood  or  park,  stretching  endlessly  ;  a  hill  implied  a  vale  beyond, 
with  that  vale's  history ;  the  by-lanes,  with  their  green  hedges, 
wound  and  vanished,  yet  were  not  lost  to  the  imagination.  Such 
was  our  first  journey :  but  when  we  had  gone  it  several  times, 
the  mind  refused  to  act,  the  scene  ceased  to  enchant,  stern  reality 
alone  remained ;  and  we  thought  it  one  of  the  most  tiresome, 
odious  roads  we  ever  had  occasion  to  traverse." 

That  is  to  say,  that  the  function  of  the  poet  is  to 
introduce  a  "gay  confusion,"  a  rich  medley  which 
does  not  exist  in  the  actual  world, — which  perhaps 
could  not  exist  in  any  world, — but  which  would  seem 
pretty  if  it  did  exist.  Every  one  who  reads  "  Enoch 
Arden"  will  perceive  that  this  notion  of  all  poetry  is 
exactly  applicable  to  this  one  poem.  Whatever  be 
made  of  Enoch's  "ocean-spoil  in  ocean-smelling  osier," 
of  the  "portal-warding  lion-whelp"  and  the  "peacock 
yew-tree,"  every  one  knows  that  in  himself  Enoch 
could  not  have  been  charming.  People  who  sell  fish 
about  the  country  (and  that  is  what  he  did,  though 
Mr.  Tennyson  won't  speak  out,  and  wraps  it  up) 
never  are  beautiful.  As  Enoch  was  and  must  be 
coarse,  in  itself  the  poem  must  depend  for  a  charm 
on  a  "gay  confusion," — on  a  splendid  accumulation 
of  impossible  accessories. 

Mr.  Tennyson  knows  this  better  than  many  of  us. 
He  knows  the  country  world ;  he  has  proved  that  no 
one  living  knows  it  better :  he  has  painted  with  pure 
art — with  art  which  describes  what  is  a  race  per- 
haps more  refined,  more  delicate,  more  conscientious, 
than  the  sailor  —  the  "Northern  Farmer,"  and  we  all 
know  what  a  splendid,  what  a  living  thing  he  has 
made  of  it.  He  could,  if  he  only  would,  have  given 
us  the  ideal  sailor  in  like  manner;  the  ideal  of  the 
natural  sailor,  we  mean,  —  the  characteristic  present 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  233 

man  as  he  lives  and  is.  But  this  he  has  not  chosen. 
He  has  endeavored  to  describe  an  exceptional  sailor, 
at  an  exceptionally  refined  port,  performing  a  grace- 
ful act,  an  act  of  relinquishment.  And  with  this  task 
before  him,  his  profound  taste  taught  him  that  ornate 
art  was  a  necessary  medium — was  the  sole  effectual 
instrument  —  for  his  purpose.  It  was  necessary  for 
him,  if  possible,  to  abstract  the  mind  from  reality ;  to 
induce  us  not  to  conceive  or  think  of  sailors  as  they 
are  while  we  are  reading  of  his  sailors,  but  to  think 
of  what  a  person  who  did  not  know  might  fancy 
sailors  to  be.  A  casual  traveler  on  the  sea-shore, 
with  the  sensitive  mood  and  the  romantic  imagina- 
tion Dr.  Newman  has  described,  might  fancy  —  would 
fancy  —  a  seafaring  village  to  be  like  that.  Accord- 
ingly, Mr.  Tennyson  has  made  it  his  aim  to  call  off 
the  stress  of  fancy  from  real  life,  to  occupy  it  other- 
wise, to  bury  it  with  pretty  accessories ;  to  engage  it 
on  the  "peacock  yew-tree"  and  the  " portal- warding 
lion-whelp."  Nothing,  too,  can  be  more  splendid  than 
the  description  of  the  Tropics  as  Mr.  Tennyson  deline- 
ates them ;  but  a  sailor  would  not  have  felt  the  Tropics 
in  that  manner.  The  beauties  of  nature  would  not 
have  so  much  occupied  him.  He  would  have  known 
little  of  the  "scarlet  shafts  of  sunrise,"  and  nothing  of 
the  "long  convolvuluses."  As  in  "Robinson  Crusoe," 
his  own  petty  contrivances  and  his  small  ailments 
would  have  been  the  principal  subject  to  him.  "  For 
three  years,"  he  might  have  said,  "my  back  was 
bad ;  and  then  I  put  two  pegs  into  a  piece  of  drift- 
wood, and  so  made  a  chair ;  and  after  that  it  pleased 
God  to  send  me  a  chill."  In  real  life  his  piety  would 
scarcely  have  gone  beyond  that. 

It  will  indeed  be  said  that  though  the  sailor  had 
no  words  for,  and  even  no  explicit  consciousness  of, 
the  splendid  details  of  the  Torrid  Zone,  yet  that  he 
had  notwithstanding  a  dim  latent  inexpressible  con- 
ception of  them ;  though  he  could  not  speak  of  them 
or  describe  them,  yet  they  were  much  to  him.  And 


234  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

doubtless  such  is  the  case.  Rude  people  are  impressed 
by  what  is  beautiful, — deeply  impressed, — though  they 
could  not  describe  what  they  see  or  what  they  feel. 
But  what  is  absurd  in  Mr.  Tennyson's  description  — 
absurd  when  we  abstract  it  from  the  gorgeous  addi- 
tions and  ornaments  with  which  Mr.  Tennyson  dis- 
tracts us  —  is,  that  his  hero  feels  nothing  else  but 
these  great  splendors.  We  hear  nothing  of  the  phys- 
ical ailments,  the  rough  devices,  the  low  superstitions, 
which  really  would  have  been  the  first  things,  the 
favorite  and  principal  occupations  of  his  mind.  Just 
so,  when  he  gets  home  he  may  have  had  such  fine 
sentiments,  though  it  is  odd ;  and  he  may  have  spoken 
of  them  to  his  landlady,  though  that  is  odder  still : 
but  it  is  incredible  that  his  whole  mind  should  be 
made  up  of  fine  sentiments.  Beside  those  sweet  feel- 
ings, if  he  had  them,  there  must  have  been  many 
more  obvious,  more  prosaic,  and  some  perhaps  more 
healthy.  Mr.  Tennyson  has  shown  a  profound  judg- 
ment in  distracting  us  as  he  does.  He  has  given  us 
a  classic  delineation  of  the  "Northern  Farmer"  with 
no  ornament  at  all, —  as  bare  a  thing  as  can  be, —  be- 
cause he  then  wanted  to  describe  a  true  type  of  real 
men ;  he  has  given  us  a  sailor  crowded  all  over  with 
ornament  and  illustration,  because  he  then  wanted  to 
describe  an  unreal  type  of  fancied  men, —  not  sailors 
as  they  are,  but  sailors  as  they  might  be  wished. 

Another  prominent  element  in  ' '  Enoch  Ardeii "  is 
yet  more  suitable  to,  yet  more  requires  the  aid  of, 
ornate  art.  Mr.  Tennyson  undertook  to  deal  with 
half-belief.  The  presentiments  which  Annie  feels  are 
exactly  of  that  sort  which  everybody  has  felt,  and 
which  every  one  has  half  believed, — which  hardly 
any  one  has  more  than  half  believed.  Almost  every 
one,  it  has  been  said,  would  be  angry  if  any  one 
else  reported  that*  he  believed  in  ghosts;  yet  hardly 
any  one,  when  thinking  by  himself,  wholly  disbelieves 
them.  Just  so,  such  presentiments  as  Mr.  Tennyson 
depicts  impress  the  inner  mind  so  much  that  the  outer 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  235 

mind  —  the  rational  understanding  —  hardly  likes  to 
consider  them  nicely  or  to  discuss  them  skeptically. 
For  these  dubious  themes  an  ornate  "or  complex  style 
is  needful.  Classical  art  speaks  out  what  it  has  to 
say  plainly  and  simply.  Pure  style  cannot  hesitate : 
it  describes  in  concisest  outline  what  is,  as  it  is.  If 
a  poet  really  believes  in  presentiments,  he  can  speak 
out  in  pure  style.  One  who  could  have  been  a  poet— 
one  of  the  few  in  any  age  of  whom  one  can  say  cer- 
tainly that  they  could  have  been  and  have  not  been  — 
has  spoken  thus  :  — 

"When  Heaven  sends  sorrow, 
Warnings  go  first, 
Lest  it  should  burst 
With  stunning  might 
On  souls  too  bright 
To  fear  the  morrow. 

"Can  science  bear  us 
To  the  hid  springs 
Of  human  things  ? 
Why  may  not  dream, 
Or  thought's  day-gleam, 
Startle,  yet  cheer  us  ? 

"Are  such  thoughts  fetters, 
While  faith  disowns 
Dread  of  earth's  tones, 
Recks  but  Heaven's  call, 
And  on  the  wall 
Reads  but  Heaven's  letters  ? "  * 

But  if  a  poet  is  not  sure  whether  presentiments 
are  true  or  not  true ;  if  he  wishes  to  leave  his  readers 
in  doubt ;  if  he  wishes  an  atmosphere  of  indistinct 
illusion  and  of  moving  shadow,  —  he  must  use  the 
romantic  style ;  the  style  of  miscellaneous  adjunct ; 
the  style  "which  shirks,  not  meets"  your  intellect; 
the  style  which,  as  you  are  scrutinizing,  disappears. 

Nor  is  this  all,  or  even  the  principal  lesson,  which 
"Enoch  Arden"  may  suggest  to  us,  of  the  use  of 


*Jobu  Henry  Newman's  ''Warnings." 


23G  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

ornate  art.  That  art  is  the  appropriate  art  for  an 
unpleasing  type.  Many  of  the  characters  of  real  life, 
if  brought  distinctly,  prominently,  and  plainly  before 
the  mind  as  they  really  are,  —  if  shown  in  their  inner 
nature,  their  actual  essence, —  are  doubtless  very  un- 
pleasant. They  would  be  horrid  to  meet  and  horrid 
to  think  of.  We  fear  it  must  be  owned  that  Enoch 
Arden  is  this  kind  of  person.  A  dirty  sailor  who  did 
not  go  home  to  his  wife  is  not  an  agreeable  being:  a 
varnish  must  be  put  on  him  to  make  him  shine.  It 
is  true  that  he  acts  rightly ;  that  he  is  very  good. 
But  such  is  human  nature  that  it  finds  a  little  tame- 
ness  in  mere  morality.  Mere  virtue  belongs  to  a 
charity  schoolgirl,  and  has  a  taint  of  the  catechism. 
All  of  us  feel  this,  though  most  of  us  are  too  timid, 
too  scrupulous,  too  anxious  about  the  virtue  of  others, 
to  speak  out.  We  are  ashamed  of  our  nature  in  this 
respect,  but  it  is  not  the  less  our  nature.  And  if  we 
look  deeper  into  the  matter,  there  are  many  reasons 
why  we  should  not  be  ashamed  of  it.  The  soul  of 
man — and  as  we  necessarily  believe,  of  beings  greater 
than  man — has  many  parts  beside  its  moral  part.  It 
has  an  intellectual  part,  an  artistic  part,  even  a  re- 
ligious part,  in  which  mere  morals  have  no  share. 
In  Shakespeare  or  Goethe,  even  in  Newton  or  Archi- 
medes, there  is  much  which  will  not  be  cut  down 
to  the  shape  of  the  Commandments.  They  have 
thoughts,  feelings,  hopes  —  immortal  thoughts  and 
hopes  —  which  have  influenced  the  life  of  men  and 
the  souls  of  men  ever  since  their  age,  but  which  the 
"whole  duty  of  man,"  the  ethical  compendium,  does 
not  recognize.  Nothing  is  more  unpleasant  than  a 
virtuous  person  with  a  mean  mind.  A  highly  de- 
veloped moral  nature  joined  to  an  undeveloped  intel- 
lectual nature,  an  undeveloped  artistic  nature,  and  a 
very  limited  religious  nature,  is  of  necessity  repulsive. 
It  represents  a  bit  of  human  nature  —  a  good  bit,  of 
course,  but  a  bit  only  —  in  disproportionate,  unnatural, 
and  revolting  prominence ;  and  therefore,  unless  an 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,   AND   BROWNING.  237 

artist  use  delicate  care,  we  are  offended.  The  dismal 
act  of  a  squalid  man  needed  many  condiments  to 
make  it  pleasant,  and  therefore  Mr.  Tennyson  was 
right  to  mix  them  subtly  and  to  use  them  freely. 

A  mere  act  of  self-denial  can  indeed  scarcely  be 
pleasant  upon  paper.  A  heroic  struggle  with  an  ex- 
ternal adversary,  even'  though  it  end  in  a  defeat,  may 
easily  be  made  attractive.  Human  nature  likes  to 
see  itself  look  grand,  and  it  looks  grand  when  it  is 
Vnaking  a  brave  struggle  with  foreign  foes.  But  it 
does  not  look  grand  when  it  is  divided  against  itself. 
An  excellent  person  striving  with  temptation  is  a 
very  admirable  being  in  reality,  but  he  is  not  a 
pleasant  being  in  description.  We  hope  he  will  win, 
and  overcome  his  temptation ;  but  we  feel  that  he 
would  be  a  more  interesting  being,  a  higher  being,  if 
he  had  not  felt  that  temptation  so  much.  The  poet 
must  make  the  struggle  great  in  order  to  make  the 
self-denial  virtuous;  and  if  the  struggle  be  too  great, 
we  are  apt  to  feel  some  mixture  of  contempt.  The 
internal  metaphysics  of  a  divided  nature  are  but  an 
inferior  subject  for  art;  and  if  they  are  to  be  made 
attractive,  much  else  must  be  combined  with  them. 
If  the  excellence  of  '"Hamlet"  had  defended  on  the 
ethical  qualities  of  Hamlet,  it  would  not  have  been 
the  masterpiece  of  our  literature.  He  acts  virtuously, 
of  course,  and  kills  the  people  he  ought  to  kill ;  but 
Shakespeare  knew  that  such  goodness  would  not 
much  interest  the  pit.  He  made  him  a  handsome 
prince,  and  a  puzzling  meditative  character;  these 
secular  qualities  relieve  his  moral  excellence,  and  so 
he  becomes  "nice."  In  proportion  as  an  artist  has 
to  deal  with  types  essentially  imperfect,  he  must  dis- 
guise their  imperfections ;  he  must  accumulate  around 
them  as  many  first-rate  accessories  as  may  make  his 
readers  forget  that  they  are  themselves  second-rate. 
The  sudden  millionaires  of  the  present  day  hope  to 
disguise  their  social  defects  by  buying  old  places  and 
hiding  among  aristocratic  furniture  ;  just  so,  a  great 


238  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEIIOT. 

artist  who  has  to  deal  with  characters  artistically 
imperfect  will  use  an  ornate  style,  will  fit  them  into 
a  scene  where  there  is  much  else  to  look  at. 

For  these  reasons,  ornate  art  is,  within  the  limits, 
as  legitimate  as  pure  art.  It  does  what  pure  art 
could  not  do.  The  very  excellence  of  pure  art  con- 
fines its  employment.  Precisely  because  it  gives  the 
best  things  by  themselves  and  exactly  as  they  are,  it 
fails  when  it  is  necessary  to  describe  inferior  things 
among  other  things,  with  a  list  of  enhancements  and 
a  crowd  of  accompaniments  that  in  reality  do  not 
belong  to  it.  Illusion,  half-belief,  unpleasant  types, 
imperfect  types,  are  as  much  the  proper  sphere  of 
ornate  art  as  an  inferior  landscape  is  the  proper 
sphere  for  the  true  efficacy  of  moonlight.  A  really 
great  landscape  needs  sunlight  and  bears  sunlight : 
but  moonlight  is  an  equalizer  of  beauties ;  it  gives  a 
romantic  unreality  to  what  will  not  stand  the  bare 
truth.  And  just  so  does  romantic  art. 

There  is,  however,  a  third  kind  of  art  which  dif- 
fers from  these  on  the  point  in  which  they  most 
resemble  one  another.  Ornate  art  and  pure  art  have 
this  in  common,  that  they  paint  the  types  of  litera- 
ture in  a  form  as  perfect  as  they  can.  Ornate  art,  in- 
deed, uses  undue  disguises  and  unreal  enhancements ; 
it  does  not  confine  itself  to  the  best  types,  —  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  its  office  to  make  the  best  of  imperfect 
types  and  lame  approximations :  but  ornate  art,  as 
much  as  pure  art,  catches  its  subject  in  the  best  light 
it  can,  takes  the  most  developed  aspect  of  it  which 
it  can  find,  and  throws  upon  it  the  most  congruous 
colors  it  can  use.  But  grotesque  art  does  just  the 
contrary.  It  takes  the  type,  so  to  say,  in  difficulties. 
It  gives  a  representation  of  it  in  its  minimum  devel- 
opment, amid  the  circumstances  least  favorable  to  it, 
just  while  it  is  struggling  with  obstacles,  just  where 
it  is  encumbered  with  incongruities.  It  deals,  to  use 
the  language  of  science,  not  with  normal  types  but 
with  abnormal  specimens ;  to  use  the  language  of  old 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  239 

philosophy,  not  with  what  nature  is  striving  to  be,  but 
with  what  by  some  lapse  she  has  happened  to  become. 
This  art  works  by  contrast.  It  enables  you  to  see, 
it  makes  you  see,  the  perfect  type  by  painting  the 
opposite  deviation.  It  shows  you  what  ought  to  be 
by  what  ought  not  to  be ;  when  complete,  it  reminds 
you  of  the  perfect  image  by  showing  you  the  dis- 
torted and  imperfect  image.  Of  this  art  we  possess 
in  the  present  generation  one  prolific  master.  Mr. 
Browning  is  an  artist  working  by  incongruity.  Pos- 
sibly hardly  one  of  his  most  considerable  efforts  can 
be  found  which  is  not  great  because  of  its  odd  mix- 
ture. He  puts  together  things  which  no  one  else 
would  have  put  together,  and  produces  on  our  minds 
a  result  which  no  one  else  would  have  produced  or 
tried  to  produce.  His  admirers  may  not  like  all  we 
may  have  to  say  of  him.  But  in  our  way  we  too  are 
among  his  admirers.  No  one  ever  read  him  without 
seeing  not  only  his  great  ability,  but  his  great  mind. 
He  not  only  possesses  superficial  usable  talents,  but 
the  strong  something,  the  inner  secret  something, 
which  uses  them  and  controls  them;  he  is  great  not 
in  mere  accomplishments,  but  in  himself.  He  has 
applied  a  hard  strong  intellect  to  real  life ;  he  has 
applied  the  same  intellect  to  the  problems  of  his  age. 
He  has  striven  to  know  what  is;  he  has  endeavored 
not  to  be  cheated  by  counterfeits,  not  to  be  infatuated 
with  illusions.  His  heart  is  in  what  he  says.  He  has 
battered  his  brain  against  his  creed  till  he  believes  it. 
He  has  accomplishments  too,  the  more  effective  be- 
cause they  are  mixed.  He  is  at  once  a  student  of 
mysticism  and  a  citizen  of  the  world.  He  brings  to 
the  club  sofa  distinct  visions  of  old  creeds,  intense 
images  of  strange  thoughts ;  he  takes  to  the  bookish 
student  tidings  of  wild  Bohemia  and  little  traces  of 
the  demi-monde.  He  puts  down  what  is  good  for  the 
naughty,  and  what  is  naughty  for  the  good.  Over 
women  his  easier  writings  exercise  that  imperious 
power  which  belongs  to  the  writings  of  a  great  man 


THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


of  the  world  upon  such  matters.  He  knows  women, 
and  therefore  they  wish  to  know  him.  If  we  blame 
many  of  Browning's  efforts,  it  is  in  the  interest  cf 
art,  and  not  from  a  wish  to  hurt  or  degrade  him. 

If  we  wanted  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  grotesque 
art  by  an  exaggerated  instance,  we  should  have 
selected  a  poem  which  the  chance  of  late  publication 
brings  us  in  this  new  volume.  Mr.  Browning  has 
undertaken  to  describe  what  may  be  called  mind  in 
difficulties, —  mind  set  to  make  out  the  universe  under 
the  worst  and  hardest  circumstances.  He  takes  Cali- 
ban.—  not  perhaps  exactly  Shakespeare's  Caliban,  but 
an  analogous  and  worse  creature ;  a  strong  thinking- 
power,  but  a  nasty  creature, —  a  gross  animal,  uncon- 
trolled and  unelevated  by  any  feeling  of  religion  or 
duty.  The  delineation  of  him  will  show  that  Mr. 
Browning  does  not  wish  to  take  undue  advantage  of 
his  readers  by  a  choice  of  nice  subjects:  — 

"'Will  sprawl,  now  that  the  heat  of  day  is  best, 
Flat  on  his  belly  in  the  pit's  muph  mire, 
With  elbows  wide,  fists  clenched  to  prop  his  chin ; 
And  while  he  kicks  both  feet  in  the  cool  slush, 
And  feels  about  his  spine  small  eft-things  course, 
Run  in  and  out  each  arm,  and  make  him  laugh ; 
And  while  above  his  head  a  pompion  plant, 
Coating  the  cave-top  as  a  brow  its  eye, 
Creeps  down  to  touch  and  tickle  hair  and  beard, 
And  now  a  flower  drops  with  a  bee  inside, 
And  now  a  fruit  to  snap  at,  catch,  and  crunch." 

This  pleasant  creature  proceeds  to  give  his  idea  of 
the  origin  of  the  universe,  and  it  is  as  follows.  Cali- 
ban speaks  in  the  third  person,  and  is  of  opinion  that 
the  Maker  of  the  universe  took  to  making  it  on  ac- 
count of  his  personal  discomfort :  — 

"Setebos,  Setebos,  and  Setebos ! 
'Thinketh,  he  dwelleth  F  the  cold  o'  the  moon. 

"'Thinketh  he  made  it,  with  the  sun  to  match, 
But  not  the  stars, —  the  stars  came  otherwise: 
Only  made  clouds,  winds,  meteors,  such  as  that; 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  241 

Also  this  isle,  what  lives  and  grows  thereon, 
And  snaky  sea  which  rounds  and  ends  the  same. 

'"Thinketh,  it  came  of  being  ill  at  ease: 
He  hated  that  he  cannot  change  his  cold, 
Nor  cure  its  ache.     'Hath  spied  an  icy  fish 
That  longed  to  'scape  the  rock-stream  where  she  lived, 
And  thaw  herself  within  the  lukewarm  brine 
O'  the  lazy  sea  her  stream  thrusts  far  amid, 
A  crystal  spike  'twLxt  two  warm  walls  of  wave ; 
Only  she  ever  sickened,  found  repulse 
At  the  other  kind  of  water,  not  her  life, 
(Green-dense  and  dim-delicious,  bred  o1  the  sun,) 
Flounced  back  from  bliss  she  was  not  born  to  breathe. 
And  in  her  old  bounds  buried  her  despair, 
Hating  and  loving  warmth  alike :  so  he. 

'"Thinketh,  he  made  thereat  the  sun,  this  isle, 
Trees  and  the  fowls  here,  beast  and  creeping  thing. 
Yon  otter,  sleek-wet,  black,  lithe  as  a  leech ; 
Yon  auk,  one  fire-eye  in  a  ball  of  foam, 
That  floats  and  feeds ;  a  certain  badger  brown 
He  hath  watched  hunt  with  that  slant  white-wedge  eye 
By  moonlight ;  and  the  pie  with  the  long  tongue 
That  pricks  deep  into  oakwarts  for  a  worm, 
And  says  a  plain  word  when  she  finds  her  prize, 
But  will  not  eat  the  ants ;  the  ants  themselves, 
That  build  a  wall  of  seeds  and  settled  stalks 
About  their  hole, —  he  made  all  these  and  more, 
Made  all  we  see,  and  us,  in  spite :  how  else  ? " 

It  may  seem,  perhaps,  to  most  readers  that  these 
lines  are  very  difficult,  and  that  they  are  unpleasant. 
And  so  they  are.  We  quote  them  to  illustrate,  not 
the  success  of  grotesque  art,  but  the  nature  of  gro- 
tesque art.  It  shows  the  end  at  which  this  species 
of  art  aims,  and  if  it  fails  it  is  from  over-boldness 
in  the  choice  of  a  subject  by  the  artist,  or  from  the 
defects  of  its  execution.  A  thinking  faculty  more  in 
difficulties, —  a  great  type, —  an  inquisitive,  searching 
intellect  under  more  disagreeable  conditions,  with 
worse  helps,  more  likely  to  find  falsehood,  less  likely 
to  find  truth,  can  scarcely  be  imagined.  Nor  is  the 
VOL.  I.— 16 


242  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

mere  description  of  the  thought  at  all  bad :  on  the 
contrary,  if  we  closely  examine  it,  it  is  very  clever. 
Hardly  any  one  could  have  amassed  so  many  ideas 
at  once  nasty  and  suitable.  But  scarcely  any  readers 
—  any  casual  readers — who  are  not  of  the  sect  of 
Mr.  Browning's  admirers  will  be  able  to  examine  it 
enough  to  appreciate  it.  From  a  defect,  partly  of 
subject  and  partly  of  style,  many  of  Mr.  Browning's 
works  make  a  demand  upon  the  reader's  zeal  and 
sense  of  duty  to  which  the  nature  of  most  readers  is 
unequal.  They  have  on  the  turf  the  convenient  ex- 
pression "staying  power":  some  horses  can  hold  on 
and  others  cannot.  But  hardly  any  reader  not  of 
especial  and  peculiar  nature  can  hold  on  through 
such  composition.  There  is  not  enough  of  "staying 
power"  in  human  nature.  One  of  his  greatest  admir- 
ers once  owned  to  us  that  he  seldom  or  never  began 
a  new  poem  without  looking  on  in  advance,  and  fore- 
seeing with  caution  what  length  of  intellectual  ad- 
venture he  was  about  to  commence.  Whoever  will 
work  hard  at  such  poems  will  find  much  mind  in 
them :  they  are  a  sort  of  quarry  of  ideas ;  but  who- 
ever goes  there  will  find  these  ideas  in  such  a  jagged, 
ugly,  useless  shape  that  he  can  hardly  bear  them. 

We  are  not  judging  Mr.  Browning  simply  from  a 
hasty  recent  production.  All  poets  are  liable  to  mis- 
conceptions ;  and  if  such  a  piece  as  "  Caliban  upon 
Setebos"  were  an  isolated  error,  a  venial  and  par- 
ticular exception,  we  should  have  given  it  no  prom- 
inence. We  have  put  it  forward  because  it  just 
elucidates  both  our  subject  and  the  characteristics  of 
Mr.  Browning.  But  many  other  of  his  best  known 
pieces  do  so  almost  equally ;  what  several  of  his 
devotees  think  his  best  piece  is  quite  enough  illustra- 
tive for  anything  we  want.  It  appears  that  on  Holy 
Cross  Day  at  Rome  the  Jews  were  obliged  to  listen 
to  a  Christian  sermon,  in  the  hope  of  their  conver- 
sion ;  though  this  is,  according  to  Mr.  Browning,  what 
they  really  said  when  they  came  away :  — 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,   AND  BROWNING.  243 

"Fee,  faw,  f urn !  bubble  and  squeak! 
Blessedest  Thursday's  the  fat  of  the  week. 
Rumble  and  tumble,  sleek  and  rough, 
Stinking  and  .savory,  smug  and  gruff, 
Take  the  church-road,  for  the  bell's  due  chime 
Gives  us  the  summons — 'tis  sermon-time. 

"Boh,  here's  Barnabas!    Job,  that's  you? 
Up  stumps  Solomon  —  bustling  too? 
Shame,  man !  greedy  beyond  your  years 
To  handsel  the  bishop's  shaving-shears? 
Fair  play's  a  jewel !  leave  friends  in  the  lurch  ? 
Stand  on  a  line  ere  you  start  for  the  church. 

"Higgledy-piggledy,  packed  we  lie, 
Rats  in  a  hamper,  swine  in  a  sty, 
Wasps  in  a  bottle,  frogs  in  a  sieve, 
Worms  in  a  carcase,  fleas  in  a  sleeve. 
Hist !  square  shoulders,  settle  your  thumbs 
And  buzz  for  the  bishop — here  he  comes." 

And  after  similar  nice  remarks  for  a  church,  the  edi- 
fied congregation  concludes :  — 

"But  now,  while  the  scapegoats  leave  our  flock, 
And  the  rest  sit  silent  and  count  the  clock, 
Since  forced  to  muse  the  appointed  time 
On  these  precious  facts  and  truths  sublime, — 
Let  us  fitly  employ  it,  under  our  breath, 
In  saying  Ben  Ezra's  'Song  of  Death.' 

"For  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  the  night  he  died, 
Called  sons  and  sons'  sons  to  his  side, 
And  spoke  :  — '  This  world  has  been  harsh  and  strange ; 
Something  is  wrong :  there  needeth  a  change. 
But  what,  or  where?  at  the  last,  or  first? 
In  onp  point  only  we  sinned,  at  worst. 

' ' '  The  Lord  will  have  mercy  on  Jacob  yet, 
And  again  in  his  border  see  Israel  set. 
When  Judah  beholds  Jerusalem, 
The  stranger-seed  shall  be  joined  to  them : 
To  Jacob's  House  shall  the  Gentiles  cleave. 
So  the  Prophet  saith,  and  his  sons  believe. 


244        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"'Ah,  the  children  of  the  chosen  race 
Shall  carry  and  bring  them  to  their  place ; 
In  the  land  of  the  Lord  shall  lead  the  same, 
Bondsmen  and  handmaids.     Who  shall  blame, 
When  the  slave  enslave,  the  oppressed  ones  o'er 
The  oppressor  triumph  forevermore? 

'"God  spoke,  and  gave  us  the  word  to  keep; 
Bade  never  fold  the  hands  nor  sleep 
'Mid  a  faithless  world, —  at  watch  and  ward, 
Till  the  Christ  at  the  end  relieve  our  guard. 
By  his  servant  Moses  the  watch  was  set : 
Though  near  upon  cock-crow,  we  keep  it  yet. 

"'Thou!  if  thou  wast  He  who  at  mid- watch  came, 
By  the  starlight  naming  a  dubious  Name !  . 

And  if  we  were  too  heavy  with  sleep,  too  rash 
With  fear,  —  O  Thou,  if  that  martyr-gash 
Fell  on  thee  coming  to  take  thine  own, 
And  we  gave  the  Cross,  when  we  owed  the  Throne,- 

"  'Thou  art  the  Judge.     We  are  bruised  thus. 
But,  the  judgment  over,  join  sides  with  us  ! 
Thine  too  is  the  cause  !  and  not  more  thine 
Than  ours  is  the  work  of  these  dogs  and  swine, 
Whose  life  laughs  through  and  spits  at  their  creed, 
Who  maintain  thee  in  word  and  defy  thee  in  deed! 

"'We  withstood  Christ  then?  be  mindful  how 
At  least  we  withstand  Barabbas  now ! 
Was  our  outrage  sore?  but  the  worst  we  spared, 
To  have  called  these  —  Christians,  had  we  dared ! 
Let  defiance  to  them  pay  mistrust  of  thee, 
And  Rome  make  amends  for  Calvary ! 

"  '  By  the  torture,  prolonged  from  age  to  age, 
By  the  infamy,  Israel's  heritage, 
By  the  Ghetto's  plague,  by  the  garb's  disgrace, 
By  the  badge  of  shame,  by  the  felon's  place, 
By  the  branding-tool,  the  bloody  whip, 
And  the  summons  to  Christian  fellowship, — 

"  'We  boast  our  proof  that  at  least  the  Jew 
Would  wrest  Christ's  name  from  the  Devil's  crew. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  245 

Thy  face  took  never  so  deep  a  shade 
But  we  fought  them  in  it,  God  our  aid ! 
A  trophy  to  bear,  as  we  march,  a  band 
South,  east,  and  on  to  the  Pleasant  Land ! ' " 

It  is  very  natural  that  a  poet  whose  wishes  incline 
or  whose  genius  conducts  him  to  a  grotesque  art 
should  be  attracted  towards  mediaeval  subjects.  There 
is  no  age  whose  legends  are  so  full  of  grotesque  sub- 
jects, and  no  age  whose  real  life  was  so  fit  to  sug- 
gest them.  Then,  more  than  at  any  other  time, 
good  principles  have  been  under  great  hardships. 
The  vestiges  of  ancient  civilization,  the  germs  of 
modern  civilization,  the  little  remains  of  what  had 
been,  the  small  beginnings  of  what  is,  were  buried 
under  a  cumbrous  mass  of  barbarism  and  cruelty. 
Good  elements  hidden  in  horrid  accompaniments  are 
the  special  theme  of  grotesque  art ;  and  these,  medi- 
aeval life  and  legends  afford  more  copiously  than 
could  have  been  furnished  before  Christianity  gave 
its  new  elements  of  good,  or  since  modern  civiliza- 
tion has  removed  some  few  at  least  of  the  old  ele- 
ments of  destruction.  A  buried  life  like  the  spiritual 
mediaeval  was  Mr.  Browning's  natural  element,  and 
he  was  right  to  be  attracted  by  it.  His  mistake 
has  been,  that  he  has  not  made  it  pleasant :  that  he 
has  forced  his  art  to  topics  on  which  no  one  could 
charm,  or  on  which  he  at  any  rate  could  not ;  that 
on  these  occasions  and  in  these  poems  he  has  failed 
in  fascinating  men  and  women  of  sane  taste. 

We  say  "sane"  because  there  is  a  most  formidable 
and  estimable  insane  taste.  The  will  has  great  though 
indirect  power  over  the  taste,  just  as  it  has  over  the 
belief.  There  are  some  horrid  beliefs  from  which 
human  nature  revolts,  from  which  at  first  it  shrinks, 
to  which  at  first  no  effort  can  force  it.  But  if  we  fix 
the  mind  upon  them,  they  have  a  power  over  us  just 
because  of  their  natural  offensiveness.  They  are  like 
the  sight  of  human  blood :  experienced  soldiers  tell 
us  that  at  first,  men  are  sickened  by  the  smell  and 


240  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

newness  of  blood  almost  to  death  and  fainting ;  but 
that  as  soon  as  they  harden  their  hearts  and  stiffen 
their  minds,  as  soon  as  they  will  bear  it,  then  comes 
an  appetite  for  slaughter,  a  tendency  to  gloat  on 
carnage,  to  love  blood  (at  least  for  the  moment)  with 
a  deep,  eager  love.  It  is  a  principle  that  if  we  put 
down  a  healthy  instinctive  aversion,  nature  avenges 
herself  by  creating  an  unhealthy  insane  attraction. 
For  this  reason,  the  most  earnest  truth-seeking  men 
fall  into  the  worst  delusions.  They  will  not  let  their 
mind  alone ;  they  force  it  towards  some  ugly  thing, 
which  a  crotchet  of  argument,  a  conceit  of  intellect 
recommends :  and  nature  punishes  their  disregard  of 
her  warning  by  subjection  to  the  ugly  one,  by  belief 
in  it.  Just  so,  the  most  industrious  critics  get  the 
most  admiration.  They  think  it  unjust  to  rest  in 
their  instinctive  natural  horror;  they  overcome  it, 
and  angry  nature  gives  them  over  to  ugly  poems 
and  marries  them  to  detestable  stanzas. 

Mr.  Browning  possibly,  and  some  of  the .  worst 
of  Mr.  Browning's  admirers  certainly,  will  say  that 
these  grotesque  objects  exist  in  real  life,  and  there- 
fore they  ought  to  be,  at  least  may  be,  described  in 
art.  But  though  pleasure  is  not  the  end  of  poetry, 
pleasing  is  a  condition  of  poetry.  An  exceptional 
monstrosity  of  horrid  ugliness  cannot  be  made  pleas- 
ing, except  it  be  made  to  suggest  —  to  recall  —  the 
perfection,  the  beauty,  from  which  it  is  a  deviation. 
Perhaps  in  extreme  cases  no  art  is  equal  to  this  :  but 
then  such  self-imposed  problems  should  not  be  worked 
by  the  artist ;  these  out-of-the-way  and  detestable  sub- 
jects should  be  let  alone  by  him.  It  is  rather  char- 
acteristic of  Mr.  Browning  to  neglect  this  rule.  He 
is  the  most  of  a  realist,  and  the  least  of  an  idealist, 
of  any  poet  we  know.  He  evidently  sympathizes 
with  some  part  at  least  of  "Bishop  Blougram's  Apol- 
ogy." Anyhow  this  world  exists.  "There  is  good 
wine ;  there  are  pretty  women ;  there  are  comfort- 
able benefices ;  there  is  money,  and  it  is  pleasant  to 
spend  it.  Accept  the  creed  of  your  age  and  you  get 


WORDSWORTH,   TENNYSON,   AND  BROWNING.  247 

these,  reject  that  creed  and  you  lose  them.  And  for 
what  do  you  lose  them  ?  For  a  fancy  creed  of  your 
own,  which  no  one  else  will  accept,  which  hardly 
any  one  will  call  a  '  creed,'  which  most  people  will 
consider  a  sort  of  unbelief."  Again,  Mr.  Browning 
evidently  loves  what  we  may  call  the  "  realism,'* 
the  grotesque  realism,  of  orthodox  Christianity.  Many 
parts  of  it  in  which  great  divines  have  felt  keen 
difficulties  are  quite  pleasant  to  him.  He  must  see 
his  religion,  he  must  have  an  "object-lesson"  in 
believing.  He  must  have  a  creed  that  will  take, 
which  wins  and  holds  the  miscellaneous  world, 
which  stout  men  will  heed,  which  nice  women  will 
adore.  The  spare  moments  of  solitary  religion,  the 
"obstinate  questionings,"  the  "high  instincts,"  the 
"first  affections,"  the  "shadowy  recollections," 

"Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain-light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master-light  of  all  our  seeing,"* 

the  great  but  vague  faith,  the  unutterable  tenets, 
—  seem  to  him  worthless,  visionary :  they  are  not 
enough  "immersed  in  matter"!;  they  move  about 
"  in  worlds  not  realized."  We  wish  he  could  be 
tried  like  the  prophet  once :  he  would  have  found 
God  in  the  earthquake  and  the  storm ;  he  would 
have  deciphered  from  them  a  bracing  and  a  rough 
religion ;  he  would  have  known  that  crude  men  and 
ignorant  women  felt  them  too,  and  he  would  accord- 
ingly have  trusted  them :  but  he  would  have  dis- 
trusted and  disregarded  the  "still  small  voice";  he 
would  have  said  it  was  "fancy,"  —  a  thing  you 
thought  you  heard  to-day,  but  were  not  sure  jrou  had 
heard  to-morrow ;  he  would  call  it  a  nice  illusion,  an 
immaterial  prettiness ;  he  would  ask  triumphantly, 
"How  are  you  to  get  the  mass  of  men  to  heed  this 
little  thing  ? "  he  would  have  persevered,  and  insisted, 
"My  wife  does  not  hear  it." 


*  Wordsworth,  "Intimations  of  Immortality,"  ix. 

t"  Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding,"  Book  iv.,  Chap.  Hi.,  i.  2. 


248  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

But  although  a  suspicion  of  beauty,  and  a  taste 
for  ugly  reality,  have  led  Mr.  Browning  to  exaggerate 
the  functions  and  to  caricature  the  nature  of  grotesque 
art,  we  own  —  or  rather  we  maintain  —  that  he  has 
given  many  excellent  specimens  of  that  art  within 
its  proper  boundaries  and  limits.  Take  an  example, 
his  picture  of  what  we  may  call  the  bourgeois  nature 
in  difficulties;  in  the  utmost  difficulty,  in  contact 
with  magic  and  the  supernatural.  He  has  made  of 
it  something  homely,  comic,  true ;  reminding  us  of 
what  bourgeois  nature  really  is.  By  showing  us  the 
type  under  abnormal  conditions,  he  reminds  us  of  the 
type  under  its  best  and  most  satisfactory  conditions  : 

' '  Hamelin  town's  in  Brunswick, 

By  famous  Hanover  city ; 
The  river  Weser,  deep  and  wide, 
Washes  its  wall  on  the  southern  side  ; 
A  pleasanter  spot  you  never  spied : 

But  when  begins  my  ditty, 
Almost  five  hundred  years  ago, 
To  see  the  townsfolk  suffer  so 

From  vermin  was  a  pity. 

"Eats! 
They  fought  the  dogs,  and  killed  the  cats, 

And  bit  the  babies  in  the  cradles, 
And  ate  the  cheeses  out  of  the  vats, 

And  licked  the  soup  from  the  cook's  own  ladles, 
Split  open  the  kegs  of  salted  sprats, 
Made  nests  inside  men's  Sunday  hats, 
And  even  spoiled  the  women's  chats, 

By  drowning  their  speaking 

With  shrieking  and  squeaking 
In  fifty  different  sharps  and  flats. 

"At  last  the  people  in  a  body 

To  the  town  hall  came  flocking : 
"Tis  clear,'  cried  they,   'our  mayor's  a  noddy; 

And  as  for  our  corporation, —  shocking 
To  think  we  buy  gowns  lined  with  ermine 
For  dolts  that  can't  or  won't  determine 
What's  best  to  rid  us  of  our  vermin  ! 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  249 

You  hope,  because  you're  old  and  obese, 
To  find  in  the  furry  civic  robe  ease? 
Kouse  up,  sirs !     Give  your  brains  a  racking 
To  find  the  remedy  we're  lacking, 
Or,  sure  as  fate,  we'll  send  you  packing ! ' 
At  this  the  mayor  and  corporation 
Quaked  with  a  mighty  consternation." 

A  person  of  musical  abilities  proposes  to  extricate 
the  civic  dignitaries  from  the  difficulty,  and  they 
promise  him  a  thousand  guilders  if  he  does :  — 

"Into  the  street  the  Piper  stept, 
Smiling  first  a  little  smile, 

As  if  he  knew  what  magic  slept 
In  his  quiet  pipe  the  while ; 

Then,  like  a  musical  adept, 
To  blow  the  pipe  his  lips  he  wrinkled, 
And  green  and  blue  his  sharp  eye  twinkled 
Like  a  candle  flame  where  salt  is  sprinkled ; 
And  ere  three  shrill  notes  the  pipe  uttered, 
You  heard  as  if  an  army  muttered ; 
And  the  muttering  grew  to  a  grumbling ; 
And  the  grumbling  grew  to  a  mighty  rumbling ; 
And  out  of  the  houses  the  rats  came  tumbling : 
Great  rats,  small  rats,  lean  rats,  brawny  rats, 
Brown  rats,  black  rats,  gray  rats,  tawny  rats, 
Grave  old  plodders,  gay  young  friskers, 

Fathers,  mothers,  uncles,  cousins, 
Cocking  tails  and  pricking  whiskers, 

Families  by  tens  and  dozens, 
Brothers,  sisters,  husbands,  wives, — 
Followed  the  Piper  for  their  lives. 
From  street  to  street  he  piped  advancing, 
And  step  for  step  they  followed  dancing, 
Until  they  came  to  the  river  Weser, 

Wherein  all  plunged  and  perished!  — 
Save  one  who,  stout  as  Julius  Ca?sar, 
Swam  across  and  lived  to  carry 

(As  he,  the  manuscript  he  cherished) 
To  Rat-land  home  his  commentary  : 
Which  was,  '  At  the  first  shrill  notes  of  the  pipe, 
I  heard  a  sound  as  of  scraping  tripe, 
And  putting  apples,  wondrous  ripe, 
Into  a  cider-press's  gripe  ; 


250  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

And  a  moving  away  of  pickle-tub  boards, 
And  a  leaving  ajar  of  conserve  cupboards, 
And  a  drawing  the  corks  of  train-oil  flasks, 
And  a  breaking  the  hoops  of  butter  casks : 
And  it  seemed  as  if  a  voice 

(Sweeter  far  than  by  harp  or  by  psaltery 
Is  breathed)  called  out,  "O  rats,  rejoice! 

The  world  is  grown  to  one  vast  drysaltery ! 
So  munch  on,  crunch  on,  take  your  nuncheon, 
Breakfast,  supper,  dinner,  luncheon  !  " 
And  just  as  a  bulky  sugar  puncheon, 
All  ready  staved,  like  a  great  sun  shone 
Glorious  scarce  an  inch  before  me, 
Just  as  methought  it  said,  "Come,  bore  me!"  — 
I  found  the  Weser  rolling  o'er  me.' 

"You  should  have  heard  the  Hamelin  people 
Einging  the  bells  till  they  rocked  the  steeple. 
'Go,'  cried  the  mayor,  'and  get  long  poles, 
Poke  out  the  nests  and  block  up  the  holes ! 

Consult  with  carpenters  and  builders, 
And  leave  in  our  town  not  even  a  trace 
Of  the  rats  ! ' —  when  suddenly,  up  the  face 
Of  the  Piper  perked  in  the  market-place, 

With  a  '  First,  if  you  please,  my  thousand  guilders  ! ' 

"  A  thousand  guilders  !    The  mayor  looked  blue  ; 
So  did  the  corporation  too. 
For  council  dinners  made  rare  havoc 
With  Claret,  Moselle,  Vin-de-Grave,  Hock; 
And  half  the  money  would  replenish 
Their  cellar's  biggest  butt  with  Rhenish. 
To  pay  this  sum  to  a  wandering  fellow 
With  a  gipsy  coat  of  red  and  yellow ! 
'Beside,'  quoth  the  mayor  with  a  knowing  wink, 
'  Our  business  was  done  at  the  river's  brink : 
We  saw  with  our  eyes  the  vermin  sink, 
And  what's  dead  can't  come  to  life,  I  think. 
So,  friend,  we're  not  the  folks  to  shrink 
From  the  duty  of  giving  you  something  for  drink, 
And  a  matter  of  money  to  put  in  your  poke ; 
But  as  for  the  guilders,  what  we  spoke 
Of  them,  as  you  very  well  know,  was  in  joke. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND  BROWNING.  251 

Beside,  our  losses  have  made  us  thrifty. 
A  thousand  guilders  !     Come,  take  fifty  ! ' 

"The  Piper's  face  fell,  and  he  cried, 
'  No  trifling  !     I  can't  wait,  beside  ! 
I've  promised  to  visit  by  dinner-time 
Bagdat,  and  accept  the  prime 
Of  the  head-cook's  pottage,  all  he's  rich  in, 
For  having  left,  in  the  Caliph's  kitchen, 
Of  a  nest  of  scorpions  no  survivor ; 
With  him  I  proved  no  bargain -driver,  — 
"With  you,  don't  think  I'll  bate  a  stiver ! 
And  folks  who  put  me  in  a  passion 
May  find  me  pipe  to  another  fashion.' 

"  'How  ! '  cried  the  mayor,  'd'ye  think  I'll  brook 
Being  worse  treated  than  a  cook  ? 
Insulted  by  a  lazy  ribald 
With  idle  pipe  and  vesture  piebald  ? 
You  threaten  us,  fellow  ?    Do  your  worst, 
Blow  your  pipe  there  till  you  burst ! ' 

"Once  more  he  stept  into  the  street, 

And  to  his  lips  again 

Laid  his  long  pipe  of  smooth  straight  cane ; 
And  ere  he  blew  three  notes  (such  sweet 

Soft  notes  as  yet  musician's  cunning 
Never  gave  the  enraptured  air), 
There  was  a  rustling  that  seemed  like  a  bustling 
Of  merry  crowds  justling  at  pitching  and  hustling : 
Small  feet  were  pattering,  wooden  shoes  clattering, 
Little  hands  clapping  and  little  tongues  chattering, 
A.nd  like  fowls  in  a  farm-yard  when  barley  is  scattering, 

Out  came  the  children  running. 
All  the  little  boys  and  girls, 
With  rosy  cheeks  and  flaxen  curls, 
And  sparkling  eyes  and  teeth  like  pearls, 
Tripping  and  skipping,  ran  merrily  after 
The  wonderful  music  with  shouting  and  laughter. 

"And  I  must  not  omit  to  say 
That  in  Transylvania  there's  a  tribe 
Of  alien  people  that  ascribe 
The  outlandish  ways  and  dress 


252  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

On  which  their  neighbors  lay  such  stress, 

To  their  fathers  and  mothers  having  risen 

Out  of  some  subterraneous  prison 

Into  which  they  were  trepanned 

Long  time,  ago  in  a  mighty  band 

Out  of  Hamelin  town  in  Brunswick  land, 

But  how  or  why  they  don't  understand." 

Something  more  we  had  to  say  of  Mr.  Browning, 
but  we  must  stop.  It  is  singularly  characteristic  of 
this  age  that  the  poems  which  rise  to  the  surface 
should  be  examples  of  ornate  art  and  grotesque  art, 
not  of  pure  art.  We  live  in  the  realm  of  the  half- 
educated.  The  number  of  readers  grows  daily,  but 
the  quality  of  readers  does  not  improve  rapidly.  The 
middle  class  is  scattered,  headless ;  it  is  well-mean- 
ing, but  aimless :  wishing  to  be  wise,  but  ignorant 
how  to  be  wise.  The  aristocracy  of  England  never 
was  a  literary  aristocracy ;  never  even  in  the  days 
of  its  full  power,  of  its  unquestioned  predominance, 
did  it  guide  —  did  it  even  seriously  try  to  guide  — 
the  taste  of  England.  Without  guidance,  young  men 
and  tired  men  are  thrown  amongst  a  mass  of  books; 
they  have  to  choose  which  they  like.  Many  of  them 
would  much  like  to  improve  their  culture,  to  chasten 
their  taste,  if  they  knew  how  :  but  left  to  themselves, 
they  take  not  pure  art,  but  showy  art ;  not  that 
which  permanently  relieves  the  eye,  and  makes  it 
happy  whenever  it  looks  and  as  long  as  it  looks, 
but  glaring  art,  which  catches  and  arrests  the  eye 
for  a  moment,  but.  which  in  the  end  fatigues  it. 
But  before  the  wholesome  remedy  of  nature  —  the 
fatigue  —  arrives,  the  hasty  reader  has  passed  on  to 
some  new  excitement,  which  in  its  turn  stimulates 
for  an  instant  and  then  is  passed  by  for  ever.  These 
conditions  are  not  favorable  to  the  due  appreciation 
of  pure  art, —  of  that  art  which  must  be  known 
before  it  is  admired,  which  must  have  fastened  irrev- 
ocably on  the  brain  before  you  appreciate  it,  which 
you  must  love  ere  it  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love. 


WORDSWORTH,    TENNYSON,    AND   BROWNING.  253 

Women,  too,  whose  voice  in  literature  counts  as 
well  as  that  of  men,  and  in  a  light  literature  counts 
for  more  than  that  of  men, —  women,  such  as  we 
know  them,  such  as  they  are  likely  to  be,  ever 
prefer  a  delicate  unreality  to  a  true  or  firm  art.  A 
dressy  literature,  an  exaggerated  literature,  seem  to 
be  fated  to  us.  These  are  our  curses,  as  other  times 
had  theirs. 

"And  yet 

Think  not  the  living  times  forget. 

Ages  of  heroes  fought  and  fell, 

That  Homer  in  the  end  might  tell ; 

O'er  groveling  generations  past 

Upstood  the  Doric  fane  at  last ; 

And  countless  hearts  on  countless  years 

Had  wasted  thoughts  and  hopes  and  fears, 

Eude  laughter  and  unmeaning  tears, 

Ere  England  Shakespeare  saw,  or  Rome 

The  pure  perfection  of  her  dome. 

Others,  I  doubt  not,  if  not  we, 

The  issue  of  our  toils  shall  see; 

Young  children  gather  as  their  own 

The  harvest  that  the  dead  had  sown, 

The  dead  forgotten  and  unknown."* 


*  Arthur  Hugh  Clough.    ("  Come,  Poet,  Come ! ") 


SHAKESPEARE— THE  MAN* 
(1853.) 

THE  greatest  of  English  poets,  it  is  often  said,  is 
but  a  name.  "No  letter  of  his  writing,  no  record  of 
his  conversation,  no  character  of  him  drawn  with 
any  fullness  by  a  contemporary,"  have  been  extracted 
by  antiquaries  from  the  piles  of  rubbish  which  they 
have  sifted.  Yet  of  no  person  is  there  a  clearer  pic- 
ture in  the  popular  fancy.  You  seem  to  have  known 
Shakespeare,  to  have  seen  Shakespeare,  to  have  been 
friends  with  Shakespeare.  We  would  attempt  a  slight 
delineation  of  the  popular  idea  which  has  been  formed : 
not  from  loose  tradition  or  remote  research,  not  from 
what  some  one  says  some  one  else  said  that  the  poet 
said,  but  from  data  which  are  at  least  undoubted,— 
from  the  sure  testimony  of  his  certain  works. 

Some  extreme  skeptics,  we  know,  doubt  whether  it 
is  possible  to  deduce  anything  as  to  an  author's  char- 
acter from  his  works.  Yet  surely  people  do  not  keep 
a  tame  steam-engine  to  write  their  books :  and  if  those 
books  were  really  written  by  a  man,  he  must  have 
been  a  man  who  could  write  them;  he  must  have 
had  the  thoughts  which  they  express,  have  acquired 
the  knowledge  they  contain,  have  possessed  the  style 
in  which  we  read  them.  The  difficulty  is  a  defect 
of  the  critics.  A  person  who  knows  nothing  of  an 

*  Shakespeare  et  son  Temps:  Etude  Litteraire.  Par  M.  Guizot.  Paris. 
1852. 

Notes  and  Emendations  to  the  Text  of  Shakespeare's  Plays  from  early 
Manuscript  Corrections  in  a  Copy  of  the  Eolio,  1632,  in  the  possession  of 
R.  Payne  Collier,  Esq.,  F.S.  A.  London.  1853. 

(254) 


SHAKESPEARE.  255 


author  he  has  read  will  not  know  much  of  an  author 
whom  he  has  seen. 

First  of  all,  it  may  be  said  that  Shakespeare's 
works  could  only  be  produced  by  a  first-rate  imagi- 
nation working  on  a  first-rate  experience.  It  is  often 
difficult  to  make  out  whether  the  author  of  a  poetic 
creation  is  drawing  from  fancy  or  drawing  from  ex- 
perience ;  but  for  art  on  a  certain  scale,  the  two  must 
concur.  Out  of  nothing,  nothing  can  be  created.  Some 
plastic  power  is  required,  however  great  may  be  the 
material.  And  when  such  a  work  as  "Hamlet"  or 
"Othello" — still  more,  when  both  of  them  and  others 
not  unequal  have  been  created  by  a  single  mind,  it 
may  be  fairly  said  that  not  only  a  great  imagination, 
but  a  full  conversancy  with  the  world,  was  necessary 
to  their  production.  The  whole  powers  of  man,  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  are  not  too  great 
for  such  an  effort.  We  may  assume  that  Shakespeare 
had  a  great  experience. 

To  a  great  experience  one  thing  is  essential, —  an 
experiencing  nature.  It  is  not  enough  to  have  oppor- 
tunity, it  is  essential  to  feel  it.  Some  occasions  come 
to  all  men ;  but  to  many  they  are  of  little  use,  and 
to  some  they  are  none.  What,  for  example,  has  expe- 
rience done  for  the  distinguished  Frenchman  the  name 
of  whose  essay  is  prefixed  to  this  paper  ?  M.  Guizot 
is  the  same  man  that  he  was  in  1820,  or,  we  believe, 
as  he  was  in  1814.  Take  up  one  of  his  lectures  pub- 
lished before  he  was  a  practical  statesman :  you  will 
be  struck  with  the  width  of  view,  the  amplitude  and 
the  solidity  of  the  reflections ;  you  will  be  amazed 
that  a  mere  literary  teacher  could  produce  anything 
so  wise :  but  take  up  afterwards  an  essay  published 
since  his  fall,  and  you  will  be  amazed  to  find  no 
more.  Napoleon  I.  is  come  and  gone,  the  Bourbons 
of  the  old  regime  have  come  and  gone,  the  Bourbons 
of  the  new  regime  have  had  their  turn.  M.  Guizot 
has  been  first  minister  of  a  citizen  king ;  he  has  led  a 
great  party;  he  has  pronounced  many  a  great  dixcours 


256  THE  TRAVELEKS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

that  was  well  received  by  the  second  elective  assem- 
bly in  the  world.  But  there  is  no  trace  of  this  in  his 
writings.  No  one  would  guess  from  them  that  their 
author  had  ever  left  the  professor's  chair.  It  is  the 
same,  we  are  told,  with  small  matters :  when  M.  Gui- 
zot  walks  the  street,  he  seems  to  see  nothing;  the 
head  is  thrown  back,  the  eye  fixed,  and  the  mouth 
working.  His  mind  is  no  doubt  at  work,  but  it  is  not 
stirred  by  what  is  external.  Perhaps  it  is  the  inter- 
nal activity  of  mind  that  overmasters  the  perceptive 
power.  Anyhow,  there  might  have  been  an  emeute  in 
the  street  and  he  would  not  have  known  it;  there 
have  been  revolutions  in  his  life  and  he  is  scarcely 
the  wiser.  Among  the  most  frivolous  and  fickle  of 
civilized  nations  he  is  alone.  They  pass  from  the 
game  of  war  to  the  game  of  peace,  from  the  game  of 
science  to  the  game  of  art,  from  the  game  of  liberty 
to  the  game  of  slavery,  from  the  game  of  slavery  to 
the  game  of  license ;  he  stands  like  a  schoolmaster  in 
the  play-ground,  without  sport  and  without  pleasure, 
firm  and  sullen,  slow  and  awful. 

A  man  of  this  sort  is  a  curious  mental  phenome- 
non. He  appears  to  get  early  —  perhaps  to  be  born 
with  —  a  kind  of  dry  schedule  or  catalogue  of  the 
universe;  he  has  a  ledger  in  his  head,  and  has  a  title 
to  which  he  can  refer  any  transaction ;  nothing  puz- 
zles him,  nothing  comes  amiss  to  him,  but  he  is  not 
in  the  least  the  wiser  for  anything.  Like  the  book- 
keeper, he  has  his  heads  of  account,  and  he  knows 
them,  but  he  is  no  wiser  for  the  particular  items. 
After  a  busy  day  and  after  a  slow  day,  after  a  few 
entries  and  after  many,  his  knowledge  is  exactly  the 
same :  take  his  opinion  of  Baron  Rothschild,  he  will 
say,  "Yes,  he  keeps  an  account  with  us";  of  Hum- 
phrey Brown,  "Yes,  we  have  that  account,  too."  Just 
so  with  the  class  of  minds  which  we  are  speaking  of, 
and  in  greater  matters.  Very  early  in  life  they  come 
to  a  certain  and  considerable  acquaintance  with  the 
world;  they  learn  very  quickly  all  they  can  learn, 


SHAKESPEARE.  257 


and  naturally  they  never  in  any  way  learn  any 
more.  Mr.  Pitt  is  in  this  country  the  type  of  the 
character.  Mr.  Alison,  in  a  well-known  passage,  * 
makes  it  a  matter  of  wonder  that  he  was  fit  to  be 
a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  at  twenty-three,  and 
it  is  a  great  wonder;  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
he  was  no  more  fit  at  forty-three.  As  somebody  said, 
he  did  not  grow,  he  was  cast.  Experience  taught 
him  nothing,  and  he  did  not  believe  that  he  had  any- 
thing to  learn.  The  habit  of  mind  in  smaller  degrees 
is  not  very  rare,  and  might  be  illustrated  without 
end.  Hazlitt  tells  a  story  of  West,  the  painter,  that 
is  in  point :  when  some  one  asked  him  if  he  had  ever 
been  to  Greece,  he  answered,  "No,  I  have  read  a 
descriptive  catalogue  of  the  principal  objects  in  that 
country,  and  I  believe  I  am  as  well  conversant  with 
them  as  if  I  had  visited  it."  f  No  doubt  he  was  just 
as  well  conversant,  and  so  would  be  any  doctrinaire. 
But  Shakespeare  was  not  a  man  of  this  sort.  If 
he  walked  down  a  street,  he  knew  what  was  in  that 
street.  His  mind  did  not  form  in  early  life  a  classi- 
fied list  of  all  the  objects  in  the  universe,  and  learn 
no  more  about  the  universe  ever  after.  From  a  cer- 
tain fine  sensibility  of  nature,  it  is  plain  that  he 
took  a  keen  interest  not  only  in  the  general  and 
coarse  outlines  of  objects,  but  in  their  minutest  par- 
ticulars and  gentlest  gradations.  You  may  open 
Shakespeare  and  find  the  clearest  proofs  of  this. 
Take  the  following  :  — 

"When  last  the  young  Orlando  parted  from  you, 
He  left  a  promise  to  return  again 
"Within  an  hour ;  and  pacing  through  tho  forest, 
Chewing  the  food  of  sweet  and  bitter  fancy, 
Lo,  what  befell !   he  threw  his  eye  aside, 
And  mark  what  object  did  present  itself :  — 
Under  an  oak,  whose  boughs  were  mossed  with  age 
And  high  top  bald  with  dry  antiquity, 


*"  History  of  Europe,"  Vol.  ii.,  pape  366. 

t Roughly  from   "The  Old  Age  of  Artists,"  in   the   "Plain   Speaker"; 
also  note  to  "A  Landscape  of  Nicolas  I'oussiu,"  iu  the  "Table  Talk." 
VOL.  I.— 17 


258  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

A  wretched  ragged  man,  o'ergrown  with  hair, 

Lay  sleeping  on  his  back :  about  his  neck 

A  green  and  gilded  snake  had  wreathed  itself, 

Who  with  her  head,  nimble  in  threats,  approached 

The  opening  of  his  mouth ;  but  suddenly, 

Seeing  Orlando,  it  unlinked  itself, 

And  with  indented  glides  did  slip  away 

Into  a  bush :  under  which  bush's  shade 

A  lioness,  with  udders  all  drawn  dry, 

Lay  couching,  head  on  ground,  with  cat-like  watch, 

When  that  the  sleeping  man  should  stir ;  for  'tis 

The  royal  disposition  of  that  beast 

To  prey  on  nothing  that  doth  seem  as  dead  : 

This  seen,"  etc.,  etc.* 

Or  the  more  celebrated  description  of  the  hunt :  - 

"And  when  thou  hast  on  foot  the  purblind  hare, 

Mark  the  poor  wretch,  to  overshoot  his  troubles, 
How  he  outruns  the  wind,  and  with  what  care 

He  cranks  and  crosses,  with  a  thousand  doubles : 
The  many  musits  through  the  which  he  goes 
Are  like  a  labyrinth  to  amaze  his  foes. 

"Sometime  he  runs  among  a  flock  of  sheep, 

To  make  the  cunning  hounds  mistake  their  smell, 
And  sometime  where  earth-delving  conies  keep, 

To  stop  the  loud  pursuers  in  their  yell  ; 
And  sometime  sorteth  with  a  herd  of  deer : 
Danger  deviseth  shifts ;  wit  waits  on  fear : 

"For  there  his  smell  with  others  being  mingled, 

The  hot  scent-snuffing  hounds  are  driven  to  doubt, 
Ceasing  their  clamorous  cry  till  they  have  singled, 

With  much  ado,  the  cold  fault  cleanly  out : 
Then  do  they  spend  their  mouths ;  Echo  replies, 
As  if  another  chase  were  in  the  skies. 

"By  this,  poor  Wat,  far  off  upon  a  hill, 

Stands  on  his  hinder  legs  with  listening  ear, 
To  hearken  if  his  foes  pursue  him  still ; 

Anon  their  loud  alarums  he  doth  hear; 
And  now  his  grief  may  be  compared  well 
To  one  sore  sick  that  hears  the  passing-bell. 


*"As  You  Like  it,"  iv.  3. 


SHAKESPEARE.  259 


"Then  shalt  thou  see  the  dew-bedabbled  wretch. 

Turn  and  return,  indenting  with  the  way; 
Each  envious  briar  his  weary  legs  doth  scrateh, 

Each  shadow  makes  him  stop,  each  murmur  stay : 
For  misery  is  trodden  on  by  many, 
And  being  low,  never  relieved  by  any."  * 

It  is  absurd,  by  the  way,  to  say  we  know  nothing 
about  the  man  who  wrote  that :  we  know  that  he 
had  been  after  a  hare.  It  is  idle  to  allege  that  mere 
imagination  would  tell  him  that  a  hare  is  apt  to  run 
among  a  flock  of  sheep,  or  that  its  so  doing  dis- 
concerts the  scent  of  hounds.  But  no  single  citation 
really  represents  the  power  of  the  argument :  set 
descriptions  may  be  manufactured  to  order,  and  it 
does  not  follow  that  even  the  most  accurate  or  suc- 
cessful of  them  was  really  the  result  of  a  thorough 
and  habitual  knowledge  of  the  object.  A  man  who 
knows  little  of  nature  may  write  one  excellent  de- 
lineation, as  a  poor  man  may  have  one  bright  guinea ; 
real  opulence  consists  in  having  many.  What  truly 
indicates  excellent  knowledge  is  the  habit  of  con- 
stant, sudden,  and  almost  unconscious  allusion,  which 
implies  familiarity,  for  it  can  arise  from  that  alone ; 
and  this  very  species  of  incidental,  casual,  and  per- 
petual reference  to  "the  mighty  world  of  eye  and 
ear "  f  is  the  particular  characteristic  of  Shakespeare. 

In  this  respect  Shakespeare  had  the  advantage  of 
one  whom,  in  many  points,  he  much  resembled,— 
Sir  Walter  Scott.  For  a  great  poet,  the  organization 
of  the  latter  was  very  blunt :  he  had  no  sense  of 
smell,  little  sense  of  taste,  almost  no  ear  for  music 
(he  knew  a  few,  perhaps  three,  Scotch  tunes,  which 
he  avowed  that  he  had  learnt  in  sixty  years,  by  hard 
labor  and  mental  association),  and  not  much  turn  for 
the  minutiae  of  nature  in  any  way.  The  effect  of 
this  may  be  seen  in  some  of  the  best  descriptive 
passages  of  his  poetry ;  and  we  will  not  deny  that  it 
does  (although  proceeding  from  a  sensuous  defect)  in 
a  certain  degree  add  to  their  popularity.  He  deals 

*"  Venus  and  Adonis."  t  WordswortL,  "Tintern  Abbey." 


2GO  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

with  the  main  outlines  and  great  points  of  nature, 
never  attends  to  any  others,  and  in  this  respect 
he  suits  the  comprehension  and  knowledge  of  many 
who  know  only  those  essential  and  considerable  out- 
lines. Young  people  especially,  who  like  big  things, 
are  taken  with  Scott,  and  bored  by  Wordsworth, 
who  knew  too  much.  And  after  all,  the  two  poets 
are  in  proper  harmony,  each  with  his  own  scenery. 
Of  all  beautiful  scenery  the  Scotch  is  the  roughest 
and  barest,  as  the  English  is  the  most  complex  and 
cultivated.  What  a  difference  is  there  between  the 
minute  and  finished  delicacy  of  Rydal  Water  and  the 
rough  simplicity  of  Loch  Katrine  !  It  is  the  beauty 
of  civilization  beside  the  beauty  of  barbarism.  Scott 
has  himself  pointed  out  the  effect  of  this  on  arts 
and  artists  :  — 

"Or  see  yon  weather-beaten  hind, 
Whose  sluggish  herds  before  him  wind, 
Whose  tattered  plaid  and  rugged  cheek 
His  Northern  clime  and  kindred  speak ; 
Through  England's  laughing  meads  he  goes, 
And  England's  wealth  around  him  flows : 
Ask  if  it  would  content  him  well 
At  ease  in  those  gay  plains  to  dwell, 
Where  hedgerows  spread  a  verdant  screen, 
And  spires  and  forests  intervene, 
And  the  neat  cottage  peeps  between  ? 
No  !  not  for  these  would  he  exchange 
His  dark  Lochaber's  boundless  range, 
Not  for  fair  Devon's  meads  forsake 
Ben  Nevis  gray  and  Garry's  lake. 

"Thus  while  I  ape  the  measure  wild 
Of  tales  that  charmed  me  yet  a  child, 
Rude  though  they  be,  still  with  the  chime 
Return  the  thoughts  of  early  time; 
And  feelings  roused  in  life's  first  day 
Glow  in  the  line  and  prompt  the  lay. 
Then  rise  those  crags,  that  mountain  tower, 
Which  charmed  my  fancy's  wakening  hour. 
Though  no  broad  river  swept  along, 
To  claim  perchance  heroic  song ; 


SHAKESPEARE.  261 


Though  sighed  no  groves  in  summer  gale, 

To  prompt  of  love  a  softer  tale ; 

Though  scarce  a  puny  streamlet's  speed 

Claimed  homage  from  a  shepherd's  reed, — 

Yet  was  poetic  impulse  given 

By  the  green  hill  and  clear  blue  heaven. 

It  was  a  barren  scene  and  wild, 

Where  naked  cliffs  were  rudely  piled, 

But  ever  and  anon  between 

Lay  velvet  tufts  of  loveliest  green ; 

And  well  the  lonely  infant  knew 

Eecesses  where  the  wallflower  grew, 

And  honeysuckle  loved  to  crawl 

Up  the  low  crag  and  ruined  wall. 

"For  me,  thus  nurtured,  dost  thou  ask 
The  classic  poet's  well-conned  task? 
Nay,  Erskine,  nay, —  on  the  wild  hill 
Let  the  wild  heath-bell  flourish  still ; 
Cherish  the  tulip,  prune  the  vine, 
But  freely  let  the  woodbine  twine, 
And  leave  untrimmed  the  eglantine. 
Nay,  my  friend,  nay, —  since  oft  thy  pivaise 
Hath  given  fresh  vigor  to  my  lays, 
Since  oft  thy  judgment  could  refine 
My  flattened  thought  or  cumbrous  line, 
Still  kind,  as  is  thy  wont,  attend, 
And  in  the  minstrel  spare  the  friend. 
Though  wild  as  cloud,  as  stream,  as  gale, 
Flow  forth,  flow  unrestrained,  my  tale  ! "  * 

And  this  is  wise,  for  there  is  beauty  in  the  North  as 
well  as  in  the  South.  Only  it  is  to  be  remembered 
that  the  beauty  of  the  Trosachs  is  the  result  of  but  a 
few  elements, — say  birch  and  brushwood,  rough  hills 
and  narrow  dells,  much  heather  and  many  stones,— 
while  the  beauty  of  England  is  one  thing  in  one  dis- 
trict and  one  in  another ;  is  here  the  combination  of 
one  set  of  qualities,  and  there  the  harmony  of  oppo- 
site ones,  and  is  everywhere  made  up  of  many  details 
and  delicate  refinements,  all  which  require  an  exquisite 

*"  Marmion,"  Introduction  toCauto  iii. 


202  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

delicacy  of  perceptive  organization,  a  seeing  eye,  a 
minutely  hearing  ear.  Scott's  is  the  strong  admira- 
tion of  a  rough  mind ;  Shakespeare's,  the  nice  minute- 
ness of  a  susceptible  one. 

A  perfectly  poetic  appreciation  of  nature  contains 
two  elements, — a  knowledge  of  facts  and  a  sensibil- 
ity to  charms.  Everybody  who  may  have  to  speak  to 
some  naturalists  will  be  well  aware  how  widely  the 
two  may  be  separated.  He  will  have  seen  that  a 
man  may  study  butterflies  and  forget  that  they  are 
beautiful,  or  be  perfect  in  the  "lunar  theory"  with- 
out knowing  what  most  people  mean  by  the  moon. 
Generally  such  people  prefer  the  stupid  parts  of  na- 
ture,— worms  and  Cochin-China  fowls.  But  Shake- 
speare was  not  obtuse.  The  lines  — 

"Daffodils, 

That  come  before  the  swallow  dares,  and  take 
The  winds  of  March  with  beauty ;  violets  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes 
Or  Cytherea's  breath,"* 

seem  to  show  that  he  knew  those  feelings  of  youth 
to  which  beauty  is  more  than  a  religion. 

In  his  mode  of  delineating  natural  objects,  Shake- 
speare is  curiously  opposed  to  Milton.  The  latter, 
who  was  still  by  temperament  and  a  schoolmaster  by 
trade,  selects  a  beautiful  object,  puts  it  straight  out 
before  him  and  his  readers,  and  accumulates  upon  it 
all  the  learned  imagery  of  a  thousand  years ;  Shake- 
speare glances  at  it  and  says  something  of  his  own. 
It  is  not  our  intention  to  say  that  as  a  describer  of 
the  external  world,  Milton  is  inferior :  in  set  descrip- 
tion we  rather  think  that  he  is  the  better.  We  only 
wish  to  contrast  the  mode  in  which  the  delineation 
is  effected.  The  one  is  like  an  artist  who  dashes  off 
any  number  of  picturesque  sketches  at  any  moment ; 
the  other  like  a  man  who  has  lived  at  Rome,  has  un- 
dergone a  thorough  training,  and  by  deliberate  and 

*"  Winter's  Tale,"  iv.  3. 


SHAKESPEARE. 


conscious  effort,  after  a  long  study  of  the  best  masters, 
can  produce  a  few  great  pictures.  Milton,  accordingly, 
as  has  been  often  remarked,  is  careful  in  the  choice 
of  his  subjects, —  he  knows  too  well  the  value  of  his 
labor  to  be  very  ready  to  squander  it ;  Shakespeare,  on 
the  contrary,  describes  anything  that  comes  to  hand, 
for  he  is  prepared  for  it  whatever  it  may  be,  and  what 
he  paints  he  paints  without  effort.  Compare  any 
passage  from  Shakespeare  —  for  example,  those  quoted 
before  —  and  the  following  passage  from  Milton :  — 

"Southward  through  Eden  went  a  river  large, 
Nor  changed  its  course,  but  through  the  shaggy  hill 
Passed  underneath  ingulfed, —  for  God  had  thrown 
That  mountain  as  his  garden  mold,  high  raised 
Upon  the  rapid  current,  which,  through  veins 
Of  porous  earth  with  kindly  thirst  updrawn, 
Kose  a  fresh  fountain,  and  with  many  a  rill 
Watered  the  garden ;  thence  united  fell 
Down  the  steep  glade,  and  met  the  nether  flood, 
Which  from  its  darksome  passage  now  appears ; 
And  now  divided  into  four  main  streams 
Kuns  diverse,  wandering  many  a  famous  realm 
And  country,  whereof  here  needs  no  account : 
But  rather  to  tell  how,  —  if  art  could  tell, — 
How  from  that  sapphire  fount  the  crispi'd  brooks, 
Rolling  on  orient  pearl  and  sands  of  gold, 
With  mazy  error  under  pendant  shades 
Ran  nectar,  visiting  each  plant ;  and  fed 
Flowers  worthy  of  Paradise,  which  not  nice  art 
In  beds  and  curious  knots,  but  nature  boon 
Poured  forth  profuse  on  hill  and  dale  and  plain, 
Both  where  the  morning  sun  first  warmly  smote 
The  open  field,  and  where  the  unpierced  shade 
Imbrowned  the  noontide  bowers.     Thus  was  this  place 
A  happy  rural  seat  of  various  view : 
Groves  whose  rich  trees  wept  odorous  gums  and  balm; 
Others  whose  fruit,  burnished  with  golden  rind, 
Hung  amiable  (Hesperian  fables  true, 
If  true,  here  only),  and  of  delicious  taste ; 
Betwixt  them  lawns  or  level  downs,  and  flocks 
Grazing  the  tender  herb,  were  interposed, 
Or  palmy  hillock,  or  the  flowery  lap 


264  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Of  some  irriguous  valley  spread  her  store  ; 
Flowers  of  all  hue,  and  without  thorn  the  rose."* 

Why,  you  could  draw  a  map  of  it.  It  is  not 
"nature  boon,"  but  "nice  art  in  beds  and  curious 
knots ; "  it  is  exactly  the  old  (and  excellent)  style 
of  artificial  gardening,  by  which  any  place  can  be 
turned  into  trim  hedge-rows,  and  stiff  borders,  and 
comfortable  shades  :  but  there  are  no  straight  lines 
in  nature  or  Shakespeare.  Perhaps  the  contrast  may 
be  accounted  for  by  the  way  in  which  the  two  poets 
acquired  their  knowledge  of  scenes  and  scenery.  We 
think  we  demonstrated  before  that  Shakespeare  was 
a  sportsman  ;  but  if  there  be  still  a  skeptic  or  a  dis- 
sentient, let  him  read  the  following  remarks  on  dogs:  — 

"  My  hounds  are  bred  out  of  the  Spartan  kind, 
So  flewed,  so  sanded ;  and  their  heads  are  hung 
With  ears  that  sweep  away  the  morning  dew ; 
Crook-kneed,  and  dewlapped  like  Thessalian  bulls ; 
Slow  in  pursuit,  but  matched  in  mouth  like  bells, 
Each  under  each.     A  cry  more  tunable 
"Was  never  holla'd  to  nor  cheered  with  horn 
In  Crete,  in  Sparta,  nor  in  Thessaly."  t 

"Judge  when  you  hear."}:  It  is  evident  that  the 
man  who  wrote  this  was  a  judge  of  dogs,  was  an  out- 
of-door  sporting  man,  full  of  natural  sensibility,  not 
defective  in  "daintiness  of  ear,"  and  above  all  things 
apt  to  cast  on  nature  random,  sportive,  half-boyish 
glances,  which  reveal  so  much  and  bequeath  such 
abiding  knowledge.  Milton,  on  the  contrary,  went 
out  to  see  nature.  He  left  a  narrow  cell,  and  the 
intense  study  which  was  his  "portion  in  this  life," 
to  take  a  slow,  careful,  and  reflective  walk.  In  his 
treatise  on  Education  he  has  given  us  his  notion  of 
the  way  in  which  young  people  should  be  familiarized 
with  natural  objects.  "But,"  he  remarks,  "to  return 
to  our  own  institute  :  besides  these  constant  exercises 


*"  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  iv.  t "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  iv.  1. 

JLine  immediately  following  verse  above. 


SHAKESPEARE.  265 


at  home,  there  is  another  opportunity  of  gaining 
experience  to  be  won  from  pleasure  itself  abroad.  In 
those  vernal  seasons  of  the  year  when  the  air  is  calm 
and  pleasant,  it  were  an  injury  and  sullenness  against 
nature  not  to  go  out  and  see  her  riches,  and  partake 
in  her  rejoicing  with  heaven  and  earth.  I  should  not 
therefore  be  a  persuader  to  them  of  studying  much 
then,  after  two  or  three  years  that  they  have  well 
laid  their  grounds,  but  to  ride  out  in  companies  with 
prudent  and  staid  guides,  to  all  the  quarters  of  the 
land  :  learning  and  observing  all  places  of  strength, 
all  commodities  of  building  and  of  soil,  for  towns 
and  tillage,  harbors  and  ports  for  trade ;  sometimes 
taking  sea  as  far  as  to  our  navy,  to  learn  there  also 
what  they  can  in  the  practical  knowledge  of  sailing 
and  of  sea-fight."  Fancy  the  ''prudent  and  staid 
guides."  What  a  machinery  for  making  pedants  ! 
Perhaps  Shakespeare  would  have  known  that  the 
conversation  would  be  in  this  sort  : — "I  say,  Shallow, 
that  mare  is  going  in  the  knees.  She  has  never 
been  the  same  since  you  larked  her  over  the  fivebar, 
while  Moleyes  was  talking  clay  and  agriculture.  I 
do  not  hate  Latin  so  much,  but  I  hate  'argillaceous 
earth';  and  what  use  is  that  to  a  fellow  in  the 
Guards,  I  should  like  to  know?"  Shakespeare  had 
himself  this  sort  of  boyish  buoyancy ;  he  was  not 
one  of  the  "staid  guides."  We  might  further 
illustrate  it,  yet  this  would  be  tedious  enough  ;  and 
we  prefer  to  go  on  and  show  what  we  mean  by  an 
experiencing  nature  in  relation  to  men  and  women, 
just  as  we  have  striven  to  indicate  what  it  is  in 
relation  to  horses  and  hares. 

The  reason  why  so  few  good  books  are  written  is, 
that  so  few  people  that  can  write  know  anything. 
In  general  an  author  has  always  lived  in  a  room,  has 
read  books,  has  cultivated  science,  is  acquainted  with 
the  style  and  sentiments  of  the  best  authors,  but  he 
is  out  of  the  way  of  employing  his  own  eyes  and 
ears.  He  has  nothing  to  hear  and  nothing,  to  see. 


266       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

His  life  is  a  vacuum.  The  mental  habits  of  Robert 
Southey,  which  about  a  year  ago  were  so  extensively 
praised  in  the  public  journals,  are  the  type  of  literary 
existence,  just  as  the  praise  bestowed  on  them  shows 
the  admiration  excited  by  them  among  literary  people. 
He  wrote  poetry  (as  if  anybody  could)  before  break- 
fast ;  he  read  during  breakfast.  He  wrote  history 
until  dinner ;  he  corrected  proof  sheets  between  din- 
ner and  tea ;  he  wrote  an  essay  for  the  Quarterly 
afterwards ;  and  after  supper,  by  way  of  relaxation, 
composed  "The  Doctor"  —  a  lengthy  and  elaborate 
jest.  Now,  what  can  any  one  think  of  such  a 
life?  —  except  how  clearly  it  shows  that  the  habits 
best  fitted  for  communicating  information,  formed 
with  the  best  care,  and  daily  regulated  by  the  best 
motives,  are  exactly  the  habits  which  are  likely  to 
afford  a  man  the  least  information  to  communicate. 
Southey  had  no  events,  no  experiences.  His  wife 
kept  house  and  allowed  him  pocket-money,  just  as  if 
he  had  been  a  German  professor  devoted  to  accents, 
tobacco,  and  the  dates  of  Horace's  amours.  And  it 
is  pitiable  to  think  that  so  meritorious  a  Mfe  was 
only  made  endurable  by  a  painful  delusion.  He 
thought  that  day  by  day,  and  hour  by  hour,  he  was 
accumulating  stores  for  the  instruction  and  entertain- 
ment of  a  long  posterity.  His  epics  were  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  all  men,  and  his  history  of  Brazil  the 
"Herodotus  of  the  South  American  Republics";  as 
if  his  epics  were  not  already  dead,  and  as  if  the  peo- 
ple who  now  cheat  at  Valparaiso  care  a  real  who  it 
was  that  cheated  those  before  them.  Yet  it  was  only 
by  a  conviction  like  this  that  an  industrious  and 
caligraphic  man  (for  such  was  Robert  Southey),  who 
might  have  earned  money  as  a  clerk,  worked  all  his 
days  for  half  a  clerk's  wages,  at  occupation  much 
duller  and  more  laborious.  The  critic  in  the  "Vicar 
of  Wakefield"  lays  down  that  you  should  always 
say  that  the  picture  would  have  been  better  if  the 
painter  had  taken  more  pains ;  but  in  the  case  of  the 


SHAKESPEARE.  26? 


practiced  literary  man,  you  should  often  enough  say 
that  the  writings  would  have  been  much  better  if 
the  writer  had  taken  less  pains.  He  says  he  has 
devoted  his  life  to  the  subject;  the  reply  is,  "Then 
you  have  taken  the  best  way  to  prevent  your  mak- 
ing anything  of  it.  Instead  of  reading  studiously 
what  Burgersdicius  and  JEnesidemus  said  men  were, 
you  should  have  gone  out  yourself  and  seen  (if  you 
can  see)  what  they  are." 

After  all,  the  original  way  of  writing  books  may 
turn  out  to  be  the  best.  The  first  author,  it  is  plain, 
could  not  have  taken  anything  from  books,  since 
there  were  no  books  for  him  to  copy  from;  he 
looked  at  things  for  himself.  Anyhow  the  modern 
system  fails,  for  where  are  the  amusing  books  from 
voracious  students  and  habitual  writers  ?  Not  that 
we  mean  exactly  to  say  that  an  author's  hard  read- 
ing is  the  cause  of  his  writing  that  which  is  hard  to 
read.  This  would  be  near  the  truth,  but  not  quite 
the  truth.  The  two  are  concomitant  effects  of  a  cer- 
tain defective  nature.  Slow  men  read  well,  but  write 
ill.  The  abstracted  habit,  the  want  of  keen  exterior 
interests,  the  aloofness  of  mind  from  what  is  next  it, 
all  tend  to  make  a  man  feel  an  exciting  curiosity 
and  interest  about  remote  literary  events,  the  toils  of 
scholastic  logicians,  and  the  petty  feuds  of  Argos 
and  Lacedsemon ;  but  they  also  tend  to  make  a  man 
very  unable  to  explain  and  elucidate  those  exploits 
for  the  benefit  of  his  fellows.  What  separates  the 
author  from  his  readers  will  make  it  proportionally 
difficult  for  him  to  explain  himself  to  them.  Se- 
cluded habits  do  not  tend  to  eloquence ;  and  the 
indifferent  apathy  which  is  so  common  in  studious 
persons  is  exceedingly  unfavorable  to  the  liveliness 
of  narration  and  illustration  which  is  needed  for 
excellence  in  even  the  simpler  sorts  of  writing. 
Moreover,  in  general,  it  will  perhaps  be  found  that 
persons  devoted  to  mere  literature  commonly  become 
devoted  to  mere  idleness.  They  wish  to  produce  a 


268        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

great  work,  but  they  find  they  cannot.  Having  re- 
linquished everything  to  devote  themselves  to  this, 
they  conclude  on  trial  that  this  is  impossible ;  they 
wish  to  write,  but  nothing  occurs  to  them  :  therefore 
they  write  nothing,  and  they  do  nothing.  As  has 
been  said,  they  have  nothing  to  do ;  their  life  has 
no  events,  unless  they  are  very  poor ;  with  any  decent 
means  of  subsistence,  they  have  nothing  to  rouse  them 
from  an  indolent  and  musing  dream.  A  merchant 
must  meet  his  bills,  or  he  is  civilly  dead  and  un- 
civilly remembered ;  but  a  student  may  know  nothing 
of  time  and  be  too  lazy  to  wind  up  his  watch.  In 
the  retired  citizen's  journal  in  Addison's  Spectator 
we  have  the  type  of  this  way  of  spending  the  time  : 
"Mem. — Morning  8  to  9,  went  into  the  parlor  and 
tied  on  my  shoe-buckles."*  This  is  the  sort  of  life 
for  which  studious  men  commonly  relinquish  the  pur- 
suits of  business  and  the  society  of  their  fellows. 

Yet  all  literary  men  are  not  tedious,  neither  are 
they  all  slow.  One  great  example  even  these  most 
tedious  times  have  luckily  given  us,  to  show  us 
what  may  be  done  by  a  really  great  man  even  now  ; 
the  same  who  before  served  as  an  illustration,  —  Sir 
Walter  Scott.  In  his  lifetime  people  denied  he 
was  a  poet,  but  nobody  said  that  he  was  not  "the 
best  fellow "  f  in  Scotland,  —  perhaps  that  was  not 
much, —  or  that  he  had  not  more  wise  joviality,  more 
living  talk,  more  graphic  humor,  than  any  man  in 
Great  Britain.  "Wherever  we  named  him,"  said  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  "we  found  the  word  acted  as  an  open 
sesamum;  and  I  believe  that  in  the  character  of  the 
sheriff's  friends,  we  might  have  counted  on  a  hearty 
welcome  under  any  roof  in  the  border  country."  \ 
Never  neglect  to  talk  to  people  with  whom  you  are 
casually  thrown,  was  his  precept ;  and  he  exemplified 
the  maxim  himself  :  — 


*No.  317.    A  very  "wild"  quotation. — ED. 

t "  He  was  a  thorough  good  fellow.'1'' — Moore  ;  Lockhart,  Vol.  v.,  Chap.  ill. 

JLockhart,  Vol.  ii.,  Chap.  i. 


SHAKESPEARE.  269 


"I  believe,"  observes  his  biographer,  "Scott  has  somewhere 
expressed  in  print  his  satisfaction  that  among  all  the  changes  of 
our  manners,  the  ancient  freedom  of  personal  intercourse  may  still 
be  indulged  between  a  master  and  an  out-of-doors  servant ;  but  in 
truth  he  kept  by  the  old  fashion,  even  with  domestic  servants,  to 
an  extent  which  I  have  hardly  seen  practiced  by  any  other  gentle- 
man. He  conversed  with  his  coachman  if  he  sat  by  him,  as  he 
often  did,  on  the  box ;  with  his  footman,  if  he  chanced  to  be  in 
the  rumble.  .  .  .  Indeed,  he  did  not  confine  this  humanity  to  his 
own  people ;  any  steady  servant  of  a  friend  of  his  was  soon  con- 
sidered as  a  sort  of  friend  too,  and  was  sure  to  have  a  kind  little 
colloquy  to  himself  at  coming  and  going."* 

"  Sir  Walter  speaks  to  every  man  as  if  they  were 
blood  relations,"  f  was  the  expressive  comment  of  one 
of  these  dependents.  It  was  in  this  way  that  he  ac- 
quired the  great  knowledge  of  various  kinds  of  men 
which  is  so  clear  and  conspicuous  in  his  writings ; 
nor  could  that  knowledge  have  been  acquired  on 
easier  terms,  or  in  any  other  way.  No  man  could 
describe  the  character  of  Dandie  DinmontJ  without 
having  been  in  Liddesdale.  Whatever  has  been  once 
in  a  book  may  be  put  into  a  book  again ;  but  an 
original  character,  taken  at  first  hand  from  the  sheep- 
walks  and  from  nature,  must  be  seen  in  order  to  be 
known.  A  man,  to  be  able  to  describe  —  indeed,  to 
be  able  to  know  —  various  people  in  life,  must  be 
able  at  sight  to  comprehend  their  essential  features, 
to  know  how  they  shade  one  into  another,  to  see 
how  they  diversify  the  common  uniformity  of  civil- 
ized life.  Nor  does  this  involve  simply  intellectual  or 
even  imaginative  prerequisites ;  still  less  will  it  be 
facilitated  by  exquisite  senses  or  subtle  fancy.  What 
is  wanted  is,  to  be  able  to  appreciate  mere  clay, — 
which  mere  mind  never  will.  If  you  will  describe 
the  people,  —  nay,  if  you  will  write  for  the  people,  — 
you  must  be  one  of  the  people  :  you  must  have  led 
their  life,  and  must  wish  to  lead  their  life.  However 
strong  in  any  poet  may  be  the  higher  qualities  of 


*Lockhart,  Vol.  iv.,  Chap.  xl.  tlbid.,  Vol.  v.,  Chap.  xii. 

Jin  "Guy  Mannering." 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 


abstract  thought  or  conceiving  fancy,  unless  he  can 
actually  sympathize  with  those  around  him  he  can 
never  describe  those  around  him.  Any  attempt  to 
produce  a  likeness  of  what  is  not  really  liked  by  the 
person  who  is  describing  it  will  end  in  the  creation 
of  what  may  be  correct,  but  is  not  living ;  of  what 
may  be  artistic,  but  is  likewise  artificial. 

Perhaps  this  is  the  defect  of  the  works  of  the 
greatest  dramatic  genius  of  recent  times,  —  Goethe. 
His  works  are  too  much  in  the  nature  of  literary 
studies  ;  the  mind  is  often  deeply  impressed  by  them, 
but  one  doubts  if  the  author  was.  He  saw  them  as 
he  saw  the  houses  of  Weimar  and  the  plants  in  the 
act  of  metamorphosis  :  he  had  a  clear  perception  of 
their  fixed  condition  and  their  successive  transitions, 
but  he  did  not  really  (if  we  may  so  speak)  compre- 
hend their  motive  power ;  so  to  say,  he  appreciated 
their  life,  but  not  their  liveliness.  Niebuhr,  as  is 
well  known,  compared  the  most  elaborate  of  Goethe's 
works,  the  novel  of  "  Wilhelm  Meister,"  to  a  menage- 
rie of  tame  animals  ;  meaning  thereby,  as  we  believe, 
to  express  much  the  same  distinction,  —  he  felt  that 
there  was  a  deficiency  in  mere  vigor  and  rude  energy. 
We  have  a  long  train  and  no  engine  ;  a  great  accumu- 
lation of  excellent  matter,  arranged  and  ordered  with 
masterly  skill,  but  not  animated  with  over-buoyant 
and  unbounded  play.  And  we  trace  this  not  to  a  de- 
fect in  imaginative  power,  —  a  defect  which  it  would 
be  a  simple  absurdity  to  impute  to  Goethe,  —  but  to 
the  tone  of  his  character  and  the  habits  of  his  mind. 
He  moved  hither  and  thither  through  life,  but  he 
was  always  a  man  apart.  He  mixed  with  unnum- 
bered kinds  of  men,  with  courts  and  academies,  stu- 
dents and  women,  camps  and  artists ;  but  everywhere 
he  was  with  them  yet  not  of  them.  In  every  scene 
he  was  there;  and  he  made  it  clear  that  he  was 
there  with  a  reserve  and  as  a  stranger,  —  he  went 
there  to  experience.  As  a  man  of  universal  culture, 
and  well  skilled  in  the  order  and  classification  of 


SHAKESPEARE.  271 


human  life,  the  fact  of  any  one  class  or  order  being 
beyond  his  reach  or  comprehension  seemed  an  ab- 
surdity, and  it  was  an  absurdity  ;  he  thought  he  was 
equal  to  moving  in  any  description  of  society,  and  he 
was  equal  to  it :  but  then,  on  that  exact  account  he 
was  absorbed  in  none  ;  there  were  none  of  surpass- 
ing and  immeasurably  preponderating  captivation.  No 
scene  and  no  subject  were  to  him  what  Scotland  and 
Scotch  nature  were  to  Sir  Walter  Scott.  "If  I  did 
not  see  the  heather  at  least  once  a  year,  I  think  I 
should  die,"  said  the  latter;*  but  Goethe  would  have 
lived  without  it,  and  it  would  not  have  cost  him 
much  trouble.  In  every  one  of  Scott's  novels  there  is 
always  the  spirit  of  the  old  moss-trooper,  the  flavor 
of  the  ancient  Border ;  there  is  the  intense  sympathy 
which  enters  into  the  most  living  moments  of  the 
most  living  characters,  —  the  lively  energy  which  be- 
comes the  energy  of  the  most  vigorous  persons  delin- 
eated. "Marmion"  was  "written"  while  he  was 
galloping  on  horseback  :  it  reads  as  if  it  were  so. 

Now,  it  appears  that  Shakespeare  not  only  had 
that  various  commerce  with  and  experience  of  men 
which  was  common  both  to  Goethe  and  to  Scott, 
but  also  that  he  agrees  with  the  latter  rather  than 
with  the  former  in  the  kind  and  species  of  that  expe- 
rience. He  was  not  merely  with  men,  but  of  men  ; 
he  was  not  a  "  thing  apart,"  f  with  a  clear  intuition 
of  what  was  in  those  around  him, —  he  had  in  his 
own  nature  the  germs  and  tendencies  of  the  very 
elements  that  he  described.  He  knew  what  was  in 
man,  for  he  felt  it  in  himself.  Throughout  all  his 
writings  you  see  an  amazing  sympathy  with  common 
people  ;  rather  an  excessive  tendency  to  dwell  on  the 
common  features  of  ordinary  lives.  You  feel  that 
common  people  could  have  been  cut  out  of  him,  but 
not  without  his  feeling  it ;  for  it  would  have  de- 
prived him  of  a  very  favorite  subject,  —  of  a  portion 
of  his  ideas  to  which  he  habitually  recurred. 

*To  Washington  Irving;  see  Lockhart,  Vol.  fv.,  Chap.  111. 

•(•"Man's  love  is  of  man's  life  a  tblng  apart."  —  "Don  Juan,"  I.,  cxcJv. 


272       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"  Leonato.     What  would  you  with  me,  honest  neighbor? 

Dogberry.  Marry,  sir,  I  would  have  some  confidence  with  you, 
that  decerns  you  nearly. 

Leon.     Brief,  I  pray  you ;  for  you  see  'tis  a  busy  time  with  me. 

Dog.     Marry,  this  it  is,  sir  — 

Verges.     Yes,  in  truth  it  is,  sir. 

Leon.     What  is  it,  my  good  friends? 

Dog.  Goodman  Verges,  sir,  speaks  a  little  off  the  matter  :  an 
old  man,  sir,  and  his  wits  are  not  so  blunt  as,  God  help,  I  would  de- 
sire they  were ;  but  in  faith,  honest  as  the  skin  between  his  brows. 

Verg.  Yes,  I  thank  God,  I  am  as  honest  as  any  man  living, 
that  is  an  old  man,  and  no  honester  than  I. 

Dog.     Comparisons  are  odorous  ;  — palabras,  neighbor  Verges. 

Leon.     Neighbors,  you  are  tedious. 

Dog.  It  pleases  your  worship  to  say  so,  but  we  are  the  poor 
duke's  officers  ;  but  truly,  for  my  own  part,  if  I  were  as  tedious 
as  a  king,  I  could  find  in  my  heart  to  bestow  it  all  of  your  worship. 

« 

Leon.     I  would  fain  know  what  you  have  to  say. 

Verg.  Marry,  sir,  our  watch  to-night,  excepting  your  worship's 
presence,  have  ta'en  a  couple  of  as  arrant  knaves  as  any  in  Messina. 

Dog.  A  good  old  man,  sir ;  he  will  be  talking :  as  they  say, 
When  the  age  is  in,  the  wit  is  out.  God  help  us  !  it  is  a  world  to 
see  ! — Well  said,  i'faith,  neighbor  Verges  ;  —  well,  God's  a  good  man  ; 
an  two  men  ride  of  a  horse,  one  must  ride  behind.  —  An  honest 
soul,  i'faith,  sir,  by  my  troth  he  is,  as  ever  broke  bread  ;  but  God 
is  to  be  worshiped:  all  men  are  not  alike, — alas,  good  neighbor! 

Leon.     Indeed,  neighbor,  he  comes  too  short  of  you. 

Dog.     'Gifts  that  God  gives—'"    Etc.,  etc.* 

"  Stafford.     Ay,  sir. 

Cade.     By  her  he  had  two  children  at  one  birth. 
Staff.     That's  false. 
Cade.     Ay,  there's  the  question  ;   but  I  say  'tis  true  • 

The  elder  of  them  being  put  to  nurse, 

Was  by  a  beggar-woman  stolen  away  ; 

And,  ignorant  of  his  birth  and  parentage, 

Became  a  bricklayer  when  he  came  to  age  ; 

His  son  am  I :  deny  it  if  you  can. 
Dick.     Nay,  'tis  too  true  ;   therefore  he  shall  be  king. 
Smith.     Sir,  he  made  a  chimney  in  my  father's  house,  and  the 
bricks  are  alive  at  this  day  to  testify  it ;   therefore,  deny  it  not. "  t 


*"Much  Ado  about  Nothing,"  iii.  5.  t"2  King  Henry  VI.,"  iv.  2. 


SHAKESPEARE.  273 


Shakespeare  was  too  wise  not  to  know  that  for 
most  of  the  purposes  of  human  life,  stupidity  is  a 
most  valuable  element.  He  had  nothing  of  the  im- 
patience which  sharp  logical  narrow  minds  habitually 
feel  when  they  come  across  those  who  do  not  appre- 
hend their  quick  and  precise  deductions.  No  doubt 
he  talked  to  the  stupid  players ;  to  the  stupid  door- 
keeper; to  the  property  man,  who  considers  paste 
jewels  "very  preferable,  besides  the  expense";  talked 
with  the  stupid  apprentices  of  stupid  Fleet  Street, 
and  had  much  pleasure  in  ascertaining  what  was 
their  notion  of  "King  Lear."  In  his  comprehensive 
mind  it  was  enough  if  every  man  hitched  well  into 
his  own  place  in  human  life.  If  every  one  were  logi- 
cal and  literary,  how  would  there  be  scavengers  or 
watchmen  or  calkers  or  coopers  ?  Narrow  minds  will 
be  "subdued  to  what  they  work  in."  The  "dyer's 
hand"  will  not  more  clearly  carry  off  its  tint,  nor 
will  what  is  molded  more  precisely  indicate  the  con- 
fines of  the  mold.  A  patient  sympathy,  a  kindly 
fellow-feeling,  for  the  narrow  intelligence  necessarily 
induced  by  narrow  circumstances,  —  a  narrowness 
which  in  some  degrees  seems  to  be  inevitable,  and  is 
perhaps  more  serviceable  than  most  things  to  the 
wise  conduct  of  life, — this,  though  quick  and  half- 
bred  minds  may  despise  it,  seems  to  be  a  necessary 
constituent  in  the  composition  of  manifold  genius. 
"How  shall  the  world  be  served?"  asks  the  host  in 
Chaucer.  We  must  have  cart-horses  as  well  as  race- 
horses, draymen  as  well  as  poets.  It  is  no  bad  thing, 
after  all,  to  be  a  slow  man  and  to  have  one  idea  a 
year.  You  don't  make  a  figure,  perhaps,  in  argu- 
mentative society,  which  requires  a  quicker  species  of 
thought ;  but  is  that  the  worse  ? 

" Holof ernes.  Via,  Goodman  Dull!  thou  hast  spoken  no  word 
all  this  while. 

Dull.     Nor  understood  none  neither,  sir. 
Hoi.     Allons .'  we  will  employ  thee. 


*  Shakespeare,  Sonnet  cxi.  t  Ibid. 

VOL.  I.  —  IS 


274        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Dull.     I'll  make  one  in  a  dance  or  so ;  or  I  will  play 

On  the  tabor  to  the  worthies,  and  let  them  dance  the  hay. 
Hoi.     Most  dull,  honest  Dull!  to  our  sport  away!"* 

And  such,  we  believe,  was  the  notion  of  Shakespeare. 
S.  T.  Coleridge  has  a  nice  criticism  which  bears 
on  this  point.  He  observes  that  in  the  narrations  of 
uneducated  people  in  Shakespeare,  just  as  in  real 
life,  there  is  a  want  of  prospectiveness  and  a  super- 
fluous amount  of  regressiveness.  People  of  this  sort 
are  unable  to  look  a  long  way  in  front  of  them,  and 
they  wander  from  the  right  path.  They  get  on  too 
fast  with  one  half,  and  then  the  other  hopelessly 
lags.  They  can  tell  a  story  exactly  as  it  is  told 
to  them  (as  an  animal  can  go  step  by  step  where  it 
has  been  before)  ;  but  they  can't  calculate  its  bear- 
ings beforehand  or  see  how  it  is  to  be  adapted  to 
those  to  whom  they  are  speaking,  nor  do  they  know 
how  much  they  have  thoroughly  told  and  how  much 
they  have  not.  "I  went  up  the  street,  then  I  went 
down  the  street ;  no,  first  went  down  and  then  —  but 
you  do  not  follow  me  :  I  go  before  you,  sir."  Thence 
arises  the  complex  style  usually  adopted  by  persons 
not  used  to  narration.  They  tumble  into  a  story  and 
get  on  as  they  can.  This  is  scarcely  the  sort  of 
thing  which  a  man  could  foresee.  Of  course  a  meta- 
physician can  account  for  it,  and  like  Coleridge, 
assure  you  that  if  he  had  not  observed  it,  he  could 
have  predicted  it  in  a  moment ;  but  nevertheless,  it 
is  too  refined  a  conclusion  to  be  made  out  from 
known  premises  by  common  reasoning.  Doubtless 
there  is  some  reason  why  negroes  have  woolly  hair 
(and  if  you  look  into  a  philosophical  treatise,  you 
will  find  that  the  author  could  have  made  out  that 
it  would  be  so,  if  he  had  not,  by  a  mysterious  misfor- 
tune, known  from  infancy  that  it  was  the  fact) ;  still, 
one  could  never  have  supposed  it  one's  self.  And 
in  the  same  manner,  though  the  profounder  critics 


*"  Love's  Labor's  Lost,"  v.  1. 


SHAKESPEARE. 


may  explain  in  a  satisfactory  and  refined  manner 
how  the  confused  and  undulating  style  of  narration 
is  peculiarly  incident  to  the  mere  multitude,  yet  it 
is  most  likely  that  Shakespeare  derived  his  acquaint- 
ance with  it  from  the  fact,  from  actual  hearing,  and 
not  from  what  may  be  the  surer  but  is  the  slower 
process  of  metaphysical  deduction.  The  best  passage 
to  illustrate  this  is  that  in  which  the  nurse  gives  a 
statement  of  Juliet's  age  ;  but  it  will  not  exactly  suit 
our  pages.  The  following  of  Mrs.  Quickly  will  suffice  : 

' '  Tilly-f ally,  Sir  John,  ne'er  tell  me ;  your  ancient  swaggerer 
comes  not  in  my  doors.  I  was  before  Master  Tisick,  the  deputy, 
'tother  day ;  and  as  he  said  to  me, —  'twas  no  longer  ago  than 
Wednesday  last :  '  Neighbor  Quickly, '  says  he,  —  Master  Dumb,  our 
minister,  was  by  then,  —  'Neighbor  Quickly,'  says  he,  'receive  those 
that  are  civil;  for,'  saith  he,  'you  are  in  an  ill  name:'  —  now,  'a 
said  so,  I  can  tell  whereupon:  'for,'  says  he.  'you  are  an  honest 
woman,  and  well  thought  on ;  therefore  take  heed  what  guests  you 
receive.  Receive,'  says  he,  'no  swaggering  companions.'  —  There 
comes  none  here. —  You  would  bless  you  to  hear  what  he  said:  — 
no,  I'll  no  swaggerers. "  * 

Now,  it  is  quite  impossible  that  this,  any  more 
than  the  political  reasoning  on  the  parentage  of 
Cade,  which  was  cited  before,  should  have  been 
written  by  one  not  habitually  and  sympathizingly 
conversant  with  the  talk  of  the  illogical  classes. 
Shakespeare  felt,  if  we  may  say  so.  the  force  of  the 
bad  reasoning.  He  did  not,  like  a  sharp  logician, 
angrily  detect  a  flaw,  and  set  it  down  as  a  fallacy 
of  reference  or  a  fallacy  of  amphibology.  This  is 
not  the  English  way,  though  Dr.  Whately's  logic 
has  been  published  so  long  (and,  as  he  says  himself, 
must  now  be  deemed  to  be  irrefutable,  since  no  one 
has  ever  offered  any  refutation  of  it).  Yet  still, 
people  in  this  country  do  not  like  to  be  commit- 
ted to  distinct  premises.  They  like  a  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  to  say,  "It  has  during  very  many 
years  been  maintained  by  the  honorable  member  for 


"'2  King  Henry  IV.,"  ii.  4. 


270  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

Montrose  that  two  and  two  make  four,  and  I  am  free 
to  say  that  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said 
in  favor  of  that  opinion ;  but  without  committing  Her 
Majesty's  Government  to  that  proposition  as  an  ab- 
stract sentiment,  I  will  go  so  far  as  to  assume  two  and 
two  are  not  sufficient  to  make  five,  which,  with  the 
permission  of  the  House,  will  be  a  sufficient  basis 
for  all  the  operations  which  I  propose  to  enter  upon 
during  the  present  year."  We  have  no  doubt  Shake- 
speare reasoned  in  that  way  himself.  Like  any  other 
Englishman,  when  he  had  a  clear  course  before  him, 
he  rather  liked  to  shuffle  over  little  hitches  in  the 
argument,  and  on  that  account  he  had  a  great  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  did  so  too.  He  would  never 
have  interrupted  Mrs.  Quickly :  he  saw  that  her  mind 
was  going  to  and  fro  over  the  subject ;  he  saw  that 
it  was  coming  right,  and  this  was  enough  for  him, — 
and  will  be  also  enough  of  this  topic  for  our  readers. 

We  think  we  have  proved  that  Shakespeare  had 
an  enormous  specific  acquaintance  with  the  common 
people  ;  that  this  can  only  be  obtained  by  sympathy. 
It  likewise  has  a  further  condition. 

In  spiritedness,  the  style  of  Shakespeare  is  very 
like  to  that  of  Scott.  The  description  of  a  charge 
of  cavalry  in  Scott  reads,  as  was  said  before,  as  if 
it  was  written  on  horseback.  A  play  by  Shakespeare 
reads  as  if  it  were  written  in  a  play-house.  The 
great  critics  assure  you  that  a  theatrical  audience 
must  be  kept  awake ;  but  Shakespeare  knew  this 
of  his  own  knowledge.  When  you  read  him,  you 
feel  a  sensation  of  motion  ;  a  conviction  that  there 
is  something  "up";  a  notion  that  not  only  is  some- 
thing being  talked  about,  but  also  that  something 
is  being  done.  We  do  not  imagine  that  Shakespeare 
owed  this  quality  to  his  being  a  player,  but  rather 
that  he  became  a  player  because  he  possessed  this 
quality  of  mind.  For  after  and  notwithstanding 
everything  which  has  [been]  or  may  be  said  against 
the  theatrical  profession,  it  certainly  does  require  from 


SHAKESPEARE.  277 


those  who  pursue  it  a  certain  quickness  and  liveli- 
ness of  mind.  Mimics  are  commonly  an  elastic  sort 
of  persons,  and  it  takes  a  little  levity  of  disposition 
to  enact  even  the  "heavy  fathers."  If  a  boy  joins  a 
company  of  strolling  players,  you  may  be  sure  that 
he  is  not  a  "good  boy":  he  may  be  a  trifle  foolish, 
or  a  thought  romantic,  but  certainly  he  is  not  slow. 
And  this  was  in  truth  the  case  with  Shakespeare. 
They  say,  too,  that  in  the  beginning  he  was  a  first- 
rate  link-boy ;  and  the  tradition  is  affecting,  though 
we  fear  it  is  not  quite  certain.  Anyhow,  you  feel 
about  Shakespeare  that  he  could  have  been  a  link- 
boy.  In  the  same  way  you  feel  he  may  have  been  a 
player.  You  are  sure  at  once  that  he  could  not  have 
followed  any  sedentary  kind  of  life.  But  wheresoever 
there  was  anything  acted,  in  earnest  or  in  jest,  by 
way  of  mock  representation  or  by  way  of  serious 
reality,  there  he  found  matter  for  his  mind. 

If  anybody  could  have  any  doubt  about  the  live- 
liness of  Shakespeare,  let  them  consider  the  character 
of  Falstaff.  When  a  man  has  created  that  without  a 
capacity  for  laughter,  then  a  blind  man  may  succeed 
in  describing  colors.  Intense  animal  spirits  are  the 
single  sentiment  (if  they  be  a  sentiment)  of  the 
entire  character.  If  most  men  were  to  save  up  all 
the  gayety  of  their  whole  lives,  it  would  come  about 
to  the  gayety  of  one  speech  in  Falstaff.  A  morose 
man  might  have  amassed  many  jokes ;  might  have 
observed  many  details  of  jovial  society  ;  might  have 
conceived  a  Sir  John  marked  by  rotundity  of  body,— 
but  could  hardly  have  imagined  what  we  call  his 
rotundity  of  mind.  We  mean  that  the  animal  spirits 
of  Falstaff  give  him  an  easy,  vague,  diffusive  saga- 
city which  is  peculiar  to  him.  A  morose  man  —  lago, 
for  example  —  may  know  anything,  and  is  apt  to 
know  a  good  deal ;  but  what  he  knows  is  generally 
all  in  corners.  He  knows  No.  1,  No.  2,  No.  ;},  and  so 
on  ;  but  there  is  not  anything  continuous  or  smooth 
or  fluent  in  his  knowledge.  Persons  conversant  with 


278       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  works  of  Hazlitt  will  know  in  a  minute  what  we 
mean.  Everything  which  he  observed  he  seemed  to 
observe  from  a  certain  soreness  of  mind :  he  looked 
at  people  because  they  offended  him  ;  he  had  the 
same  vivid  notion  of  them  that  a  man  has  of  objects 
which  grate  on  a  wound  in  his  body.  But  there  is 
nothing  at  all  of  this  in  Falstaff ;  on  the  contrary, 
everything  pleases  him,  and  everything  is  food  for 
a  joke.  Cheerfulness  and  prosperity  give  an  easy 
abounding  sagacity  of  mind  which  nothing  else  does 
give.  Prosperous  people  bound  easily  over  all  the 
surface  of  things  which  their  lives  present  to  them. 
Very  likely  they  keep  to  the  surface ;  there  are  things 
beneath  or  above  to  which  they  may  not  penetrate 
or  attain  :  but  what  is  on  any  part  of  the  surface, 
that  they  know  well.  "  Lift  not  the  painted  veil 
which  those  who  live  call  life,"  *  and  they  do  not 
lift  it.  What  is  sublime  or  awful  above,  what  is 
' '  sightless  and  drear  "  f  beneath,  —  these  they  may  not 
dream  of.  Nor  is  any  one  piece  or  corner  of  life  so 
well  impressed  on  them  as  on  minds  less  happily 
constituted.  It  is  only  people  who  have  had  a  tooth 
out  that  really  know  the  dentist's  waiting-room.  Yet 
such  people,  for  the  time  at  least,  know  nothing  but 
that  and  their  tooth.  The  easy  and  sympathizing 
friend  who  accompanies  them  knows  everything ; 
hints  gently  at  the  contents  of  the  Times,  and  would 
cheer  you  with  Lord  Palmerston's  replies.  So,  on  a 
greater  scale,  the  man  of  painful  experience  knows 
but  too  well  what  has  hurt  him,  and  where  and  why  ; 
but  the  happy  have  a  vague  and  rounded  view  of  the 
round  world,  and  such  was  the  knowledge  of  Falstaff. 
It  is  to  be  observed  that  these  high  spirits  are  not 
a  mere  excrescence  or  superficial  point  in  an  experi- 
encing nature ;  on  the  contrary,  they  seem  to  be 
essential,  if  not  to  its  idea  or  existence,  at  least  to 
its  exercise  and  employment.  How  are  you  to  know 
people  without  talking  to  them  ?  but  how  are  you 
to  talk  to  them  without  tiring  yourself  ?  A  common 


>  Shelley,  Sonnet  (1818). 


SHAKESPEARE.  279 


man  is  exhausted  in  half  an  hour;  Scott  or  Shake- 
speare could  have  gone  on  for  a  whole  day.  This  is 
perhaps  peculiarly  necessary  for  a  painter  of  English 
life.  The  basis  of  our  national  character  seems  to  be 
a  certain  energetic  humor,  which  may  be  found  in 
full  vigor  in  old  Chaucer's  time,  and  in  great  perfec- 
tion in  at  least  one  of  the  popular  writers  of  this  age, 
and  which  is  perhaps  most  easily  described  by  the 
name  of  our  greatest  painter. —  Hogarth.  It  is  amus- 
ing to  see  how  entirely  the  efforts  of  critics  and  art- 
ists fail  to  naturalize  in  England  any  other  sort  of 
painting.  Their  efforts  are  fruitless,  for  the  people 
painted  are  not  English  people :  they  may  be  Italians 
or  Greeks  or  Jews,  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  they 
are  foreigners.  We  should  not  fancy  that  modern  art 
ought  to  resemble  the  mediaeval.  So  long  as  artists 
attempt  the  same  class  of  paintings  as  Raphael,  they 
will  not  only  be  inferior  to  Raphael,  but  they  will 
never  please,  as  they  might  please,  the  English  peo- 
ple. What  we  want  is  what  Hogarth  gave  us,  —  a 
representation  of  ourselves.  It  may  be  that  we  are 
wrong;  that  we  ought  to  prefer  something  of  the  old 
world,  some  scene  in  Rome  or  Athens,  some  tale  from 
Carmel  or  Jerusalem :  but  after  all,  we  do  not.  These 
places  are,  we  think,  abroad,  and  had  their  greatness 
in  former  times :  we  wish  a  copy  of  what  now  exists, 
and  of  what  we  have  seen.  London  we  know,  and 
Manchester  we  know ;  but  where  are  all  these  ?  It  is 
the  same  with  literature, —  Milton  excepted,  and  even 
Milton  can  hardly  be  called  a  popular  writer:  all 
great  English  writers  describe  English  people,  and  in 
describing  them  they  give,  as  they  must  give,  a  large 
comic  element;  and  speaking  generally,  this  is  scarcely 
possible,  except  in  the  case  of  cheerful  and  easy-living 
men.  There  is,  no  doubt,  a  biting  satire,  like  that  of 
Swift,  which  has  for  its  essence  misanthropy ;  there 
is  the  mockery  of  Voltaire,  which  is  based  on  intel- 
lectual contempt:  but  this  is  not  our  English  humor, 
—  it  is  not  that  of  Shakespeare  and  Falstaff;  ours  is 


280        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  humor  of  a  man  who  laughs  when  he  speaks,  of 
flowing  enjoyment,  of  an  experiencing  nature. 

Yet  it  would  be  a  great  error  if  we  gave  anything 
like  an  exclusive  prominence  to  this  aspect  of  Shake- 
speare. Thus  he  appeared  to  those  around  him, —  in 
some  degree  they  knew  that  he  was  a  cheerful  and 
humorous  and  happy  man ;  but  of  his  higher  gift  they 
knew  less  than  we.  A  great  painter  of  men  must  (as 
has  been  said)  have  a  faculty  of  conversing,  but  he 
must  also  have  a  capacity  for  solitude.  There  is 
much  of  mankind  that  a  man  can  only  learn  from 
himself.  Behind  every  man's  external  life,  which  he 
leads  in  company,  there  is  another  which  he  leads 
alone,  and  which  he  carries  with  him  apart.  We  see 
but  one  aspect  of  our  neighbor,  as  we  see  but  one 
side  of  the  moon ;  in  either  case  there  is  also  a  dark 
half,  which  is  unknown  to  us.  We  all  come  down  to 
dinner,  but  each  has  a  room  to  himself.  And  if  we 
would  study  the  internal  lives  of  others,  it  seems 
essential  that  we  should  begin  with  our  own.  If  we 
study  this  our  datum,  if  we  attain  to  see  and  feel 
how  this  influences  and  evolves  itself  in  our  social 
and  (so  to  say)  public  life,  then  it  is  possible  that  we 
may  find  in  the  lives  of  others  the  same  or  analogous 
features ;  and  if  we  do  not,  then  at  least  we  may  sus- 
pect that  those  who  want  them  are  deficient  likewise 
in  the  secret  agencies  which  we  feel  produce  them 
in  ourselves.  The  metaphysicians  assert  that  people 
originally  picked  up  the  idea  of  the  existence  of  other 
people  in  this  way.  It  is  orthodox  doctrine  that  a 
baby  says,  "I  have  a  mouth,  mamma  has  a  mouth; 
therefore  I'm  the  same  species  as  mamma.  I  have  a 
nose,  papa  has  a  nose ;  therefore  papa  is  the  same 
genus  as  me."  But  whether  or  not  this  ingenious 
idea  really  does  or  does  not  represent  the  actual  pro- 
cess by  which  we  originally  obtain  an  acquaintance 
with  the  existence  of  minds  analogous  to  our  own,  it 
gives  unquestionably  the  process  by  which  we  obtain 
our  notion  of  that  part  of  those  minds  which  they 


SHAKESPEARE.  281 


never  exhibit  consciously  to  others,  and  which  only 
becomes  predominant  in  secrecy  and  solitude  and  to 
themselves.  Now,  that  Shakespeare  has  this  insight 
into  the  musing  life  of  man,  as  well  as  into  his  social 
life,  is  easy  to  prove ;  take,  for  instance,  the  following 
passages :  — 

"This  battle  fares  like  to  the  morning's  war, 

When  dying  clouds  contend  with  growing  light; 

What  time  the  shepherd,  blowing  of  his  nails, 
Can  neither  call  it  perfect  day  nor  night. 

Now  sways  it  this  way,  like  a  mighty  sea 

Forced  by  the  tide  to  combat  with  the  wind; 

Now  sways  it  that  way,  like  the  selfsame  sea 

Forced  to  retire  by  fury  of  the  wind  : 

Sometime  the  flood  prevails,  and  then  the  wind; 

Now  one  the  better,  then  another  best ; 

Both  tugging  to  be  victors,  breast  to  breast, 

Yet  neither  conqueror  nor  conquered  : 

So  is  the  equal  poise  of  this  fell  war. 

Here  on  this  molehill  will  I  sit  me  down. 

To  whom  God  will,  there  be  the  victory  ! 

For  Margaret  my  queen,  and  Clifford  too, 

Have  chid  me  from  the  battle  ;  swearing  both 

They  prosper  best  of  all  when  I  am  thence. 

Would  I  were  dead  !  if  God's  good  will  were  so ; 

For  what  is  in  this  world  but  grief  and  woe? 

O  God  !  methinks  it  were  a  happy  life, 

To  be  no  better  than  a  homely  swain  : 

To  sit  upon  a  hill,  as  I  do  now, 

To  carve  out  dials  quaintly,  point  by  point, 

Thereby  to  see  the  minutes  how  they  run,— 

How  many  make  the  hour  full  complete; 

How  many  hours  bring  about  the  day ; 

How  many  days  will  finish  up  the  year ; 

How  many  years  a  mortal  man  may  live. 

When  this  is  known,  then  to  divide;  the  times,  — 

So  many  hours  must  I  tend  my  flock  ; 

So  many  hours  must  T  take  my  rest ; 

So  many  hours  must  I  contemplate; 

So  many  hours  must  I  sport  myself ; 

So  many  days  my  ewes  have  been  with  young; 

So  many  weeks  ere  the  poor  fools  will  yean  ; 


282  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

So  many  years  ere  I  shall  shear  the  fleece : 

So  minutes,  hours,  days,  weeks,  months,  and  years, 

Passed  over  to  the  end  they  were  created, 

"Would  bring  white  hairs  unto  a  quiet  grave. 

Ah,  what  a  life  were  this !  how  sweet !  how  lovely  I 

Gives  not  the  hawthorn  bush  a  sweeter  shade 

To  shepherds,  looking  on  their  silly  sheep, 

Than  doth  a  rich  embroidered  canopy 

To  kings  that  fear  their  subjects'  treachery  ? 

Oh,  yes,  it  doth ;  a  thousandfold  it  doth. 

And  to  conclude, —  the  shepherd's  homely  curds, 

His  cold  thin  drink  out  of  his  leather  bottle, 

His  wonted  sleep  under  a  fresh  tree's  shade, 

All  which  secure  and  sweetly  he  enjoys, 

Is  far  beyond  a  prince's  delicates, 

His  viands  sparkling  in  a  golden  cup, 

His  body  couched  in  a  curious  bed, 

When  care,  mistrust,  and  treason  wait  on  him."* 

"A  fool,  a  fool !  —  I  met  a  fool  i'  the  forest, 
A  motley  fool ;  —  a  miserable  world  !  — 
As  I  do  live  by  food,  I  met  a  fool; 
"Who  laid  him  down  and  basked  him  in  the  sun, 
And  railed  on  lady  Fortune  in  good  terms, 
In  good  set  terms, —  and  yet  a  motley  fool. 
'Good-morrow,  fool,'  quoth  I;  'No,  sir,'  quoth  he, 
'  Call  me  not  fool,  till  Heaven  hath  sent  me  fortune : ' 
And  then  he  drew  a  dial  from  his  poke, 
And  looking  on  it  with  lack-luster  eye, 
Says,  very  wisely,  '  It  is  ten  o'clock ; 
Thus  may  we  see,'  quoth  he,  'how  the  world  wags: 
'Tis  but  an  hour  ago  since  it  was  nine ; 
And  after  one  hour  more  'twill  be  eleven ; 
And  so,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  ripe  and  ripe, 
And  then,  from  hour  to  hour,  we  rot  and  rot,  — 
And  thereby  hangs  a  tale.'    "When  I  did  hear 
The  motley  fool  thus  moral  on  the  time, 
My  lungs  began  to  crow  like  chanticleer, 
That  fools  should  be  so  deep-contemplative; 
And  I  did  laugh,  sans  intermission, 
An  hour  bv  his  dial."t 


*"3  Kinjj  Henry  VI.,"  ii.  5. 
t "As  You  Like  It,"  ii.  7. 


SHAKESPEARE.  283 


No  slight  versatility  of  mind  and  pliancy  of  fancy 
could  pass  at  will  from  scenes  such  as  these  to  the 
ward  of  Eastcheap  and  the  society  which  heard  the 
chimes  at  midnight.  One  of  the  reasons  of  the  rar- 
ity of  great  imaginative  works  is,  that  in  very  few 
cases  is  this  capacity  for  musing  solitude  combined 
with  that  of  observing  mankind.  A  certain  constitu- 
tional though  latent  melancholy  is  essential  to  such 
a  nature.  This  is  the  exceptional  characteristic  in 
Shakespeare.  All  through  his  works  you  feel  you  are 
reading  the  popular  author,  the  successful  man ;  but 
through  them  all  there  is  a  certain  tinge  of  musing 
sadness  pervading,  and  as  it  were  softening,  their 
gayety.  Not  a  trace  can  be  found  of  "eating  cares" 
or  narrow  and  mind-contracting  toil ;  but  everywhere 
there  is,  in  addition  to  shrewd  sagacity  and  buoyant 
wisdom,  a  refining  element  of  chastening  sensibility, 
which  prevents  sagacity  from  being  rough  and  shrewd- 
ness from  becoming  cold.  He  had  an  eye  for  either 
sort  of  life  :  — 

"Why,  let  the  strucken  deer  go  weep, 

The  hart  ungalled  play  ; 

For  some  must  watch,  while  some  must  sleep: 
So  runs  the  world  away."" 

In  another  point  also,  Shakespeare  as  he  was  must 
be  carefully  contrasted  with  the  estimate  that  would 
be  formed  of  him  from  such  delineations  as  that  of 
Falstaff,  and  that  was  doubtless  frequently  made  by 
casual  though  only  by  casual  frequenters  of  "The  Mer- 
maid." It  has  been  said  that  the  mind  of  Shakespeare 
contained  within  it  the  mind  of  Scott;  it  remains  to 
be  observed  that  it  contained  also  the  mind  of  Keats. 
For,  beside  the  delineation  of  human  life,  and  beside 
also  the  delineation  of  nature,  there  remains  also  for 
the  poet  a  third  subject,— the  delineation  of  fancies. 
Of  course  these,  be  they  what  they  may,  are  like  to 
and  were  originally  borrowed  either  from  man  or 

*'•  Hamlet,"  Hi.  2. 


284        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

from  nature, —  from  one  or  from  both  together.  We 
know  but  two  things  in  the  simple  way  of  direct  ex- 
perience, and  whatever  else  we  know  must  be  in  some 
mode  or  manner  compacted  out  of  them.  Yet  "books 
are  a  substantial  world,  both  pure  and  good,"  and  so 
are  fancies  too.  In  all  countries  men  have  devised  to 
themselves  a  whole  series  of  half -divine  creations,— 
mythologies  Greek  and  Roman,  fairies,  angels ;  beings 
who  may  be,  for  aught  we  know,  but  with  whom 
in  the  mean  time  we  can  attain  to  no  conversation. 
The  most  known  of  these  mythologies  are  the  Greek 
and  —  what  is,  we  suppose,  the  second  epoch  of  the 
Gothic  —  the  fairies;  and  it  so  happens  that  Shake- 
speare has  dealt  with  them  both,  and  in  a  remarkable 
manner.  We  are  not,  indeed,  of  those  critics  who 
profess  simple  and  unqualified  admiration  for  the 
poem  of  "Venus  and  Adonis."  It  seems  intrinsically, 
as  we  know  it  from  external  testimony  to  have  been, 
a  juvenile  production,  written  when  Shakespeare's 
nature  might  be  well  expected  to  be  crude  and  un- 
ripened.  Power  is  shown,  and  power  of  a  remark- 
able kind ;  but  it  is  not  displayed  in  a  manner  that 
will  please  or  does  please  the  mass  of  men.  In  spite 
of  the  name  of  its  author,  the  poem  has  never  been 
popular;  and  surely  this  is  sufficient.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  remarkable  as  a  literary  exercise,  and  as  a  treat- 
ment of  a  singular  though  unpleasant  subject.  The 
fanciful  class  of  poems  differ  from  others  in  being 
laid,  so  far  as  their  scene  goes,  in  a  perfectly  unseen 
world.  The  type  of  such  productions  is  Keats's 
"Endymion."  We  mean  that  it  is  the  type,  not  as 
giving  the  abstract  perfection  of  this  sort  of  art,  but  be- 
cause it  shows  and  embodies  both  its  excellences  and 
defects  in  a  very  marked  and  prominent  manner.  In 
that  poem  there  are  no  passions  and  no  actions,  there 
is  no  art  and  no  life;  but  there  is  beauty,  and  that 
is  meant  to  be  enough,  and  to  a  reader  of  one-and- 
twenty  it  is  enough  and  more.  What  are  exploits 
or  speeches,  what  is  Csesar  or  Coriolanus,  what  is  a 


SHAKESPEARE.  285 


tragedy  like  "Lear,"  or  a  real  view  of  human  life  in 
any  kind  whatever,  to  people  who  do  not  know  and 
do  not  care  what  human  life  is  ?  In  early  youth  it 
is  perhaps  not  true  that  the  passions,  taken  generally, 
are  particularly  violent,  or  that  the  imagination  is  in 
any  remarkable  degree  powerful;  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  fancy  (which,  though  it  be  in  the  last  resort 
but  a  weak  stroke  of  that  same  faculty  which  when 
it  strikes  hard  we  call  imagination,  may  yet  for  this 
purpose  be  looked  on  as  distinct)  is  particularly  wake- 
ful, and  that  the  gentler  species  of  passions  are  more 
absurd  than  they  are  afterwards.  And  the  literature 
of  this  period  of  human  life  runs  naturally  away 
from  the  real  world;  away  from  the  less  ideal  por- 
tion of  it, —  from  stocks  and  stones,  and  aunts  and 
uncles, —  and  rests  on  mere  half -embodied  sentiments, 
which  in  the  hands  of  great  poets  assume  a  kind  of 
semi-personality,  and  are,  to  the  distinction  between 
things  and  persons,  "as  moonlight  unto  sunlight,  and 
as  water  unto  wine."*  The  "Sonnets"  of  Shakespeare 
belong  exactly  to  the  same  school  of  poetry.  They 
are  not  the  sort  of  verses  to  take  any  particular  hold 
upon  the  mind  permanently  and  forever,  but  at  a 
certain  period  they  take  too  much.  For  a  young  man 
to  read  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  among  green  fields 
and  in  gentle  air,  they  are  the  ideal.  As  first-of- April 
poetry  they  are  perfect. 

The  "Midsummer  Night's  Dream"  is  of  another 
order.  If  the  question  were  to  be  decided  by  "Venus 
and  Adonis,"  in  spite  of  the  unmeasured  panegyrics  of 
many  writers,  we  should  be  obliged  in  equity  to  hold 
that  as  a  poet  of  mere  fancy,  Shakespeare  was  much 
inferior  to  the  late  Mr.  Keats,  and  even  to  meaner 
men.  Moreover,  we  should  have  been  prepared  with 
some  refined  reasonings  to  show  that  it  was  unlikely 
that  a  poet  with  so  much  hold  on  reality,  in  life 
and  nature,  both  in  solitude  and  in  society,  should 
have  also  a  similar  command  over  ?///reality :  should 
possess  a  command  not  only  of  flesh  and  blood,  but 


*  Tennyson,  "  I.ookslcy  Hull." 


286  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  the  imaginary  entities  which  the  self-inworking 
fancy  brings  forth,  —  impalpable  conceptions  of  mere 
mind ;  qucedam  simulacra  modis  pallentia  miris ;  * 
thin  ideas,  which  come  we  know  not  whence,  and 
are  given  us  we  know  not  why.  But  unfortunately 
for  this  ingenious  if  not  profound  suggestion,  Shake- 
speare in  fact  possessed  the  very  faculty  which  it 
tends  to  prove  that  he  would  not  possess.  He  could 
paint  Poins  and  Falstaff,  but  he  excelled  also  in 
fairy  legends.  He  had  such 

"Seething  brains, 

Such  shaping  fantasies,  that  apprehend 
More  than  cool  reason  ever  comprehends. ''  t 

As,  for  example,  the  idea  of  Puck  or  Queen  Mab,  of 
Ariel,  or  such  a  passage  as  the  following :  - 

" Puck.     How  now,  spirit!  whither  wander  you? 
Fairy.     Over  hill,  over  dale, 

Thorough  bush,  thorough  briar, 

Over  park,  over  pale, 
Thorough  flood,  thorough  fire, 
I  do  wander  everywhere, 
Swifter  than  the  moon's  sphere; 
And  I  serve  the  fairy  queen, 
To  dew  her  orbs  upon  the  green : 
The  cowslips  tall  her  pensioners  be ; 
In  their  gold  coats  spots  you  see, — 
Those  be  rubies,  fairy  favors, 
In  those  freckles  live  their  savors : 
I  must  go  seek  some  dewdrops  here, 
And  hang  a  pearl  in  every  cowslip's  ear. 
Farewell,  thou  lob  of  spirits ;  I'll  be  gone  : 
Our  queen  and  all  our  elves  come  here  anon. 

Puck.     The  king  doth  keep  his  revels  here  to-night : 
Take  heed  the  queen  come  not  within  his  sight. 
For  Oberon  is  passing  fell  and  wrath, 
Because  that  she,  as  her  attendant,  hath 
A  lovely  boy,  stolen  from  an  Indian  king, — 
She  never  had  so  sweet  a  changeling ; 


*" Certain  wonderfully  pale  phantoms." — Lucretius,  i.  24. 
t  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  v.  1. 


SHAKESPEARE.  287 


And  jealous  Oberon  would  have  the  child 

Knight  of  his  train,  to  trace  the  forests  wild : 

But  she  perforce  withholds  the  loved  boy, 

Crowns  him  with  flowers,  and  makes  him  all  her  joy ; 

And  now  they  never  meet  in  grove  or  green, 

By  fountain  clear  or  spangled  starlight  sheen, 

But  they  do  square,  that  all  their  elves,  for  fear, 

Creep  into  acorn  cups,  and  hide  them  there. 

Fai.     Either  I  mistake  your  shape  and  making  quite, 
Or  else  you  are  that  shrewd  and  knavish  sprite 
Called  Kobin  Goodfellow :  are  you  not  he 
That  frights  the  maidens  of  the  villagery ; 
Skims  milk ;  and  sometime  labors  in  the  quern, 
And  bootless  makes  the  breathless  housewife  churn ; 
And  sometime  makes  the  drink  to  bear  no  barm ; 
Misleads  night- wanderers,  laughing  at  their  harm? 
Those  that  Hobgoblin  call  you,  and  sweet  Puck, 
You  do  their  work,  and  they  shall  have  good  luck : 
Are  not  you  he? 

Puck.  Fairy,  thou  speak'st  aright ; 

I  am  that  merry  wanderer  of  the  night. 
I  jest  to  Oberon,  and  make  him  smile, 
When  I  a  fat  and  bean-fed  horse  beguile, 
Neighing  in  likeness  of  a  filly  foal : 
And  sometime  lurk  I  in  a  gossip's  bowl, 
In  very  likeness  of  a  roasted  crab ; 
And  when  she  drinks,  against  her  lips  I  bob, 
And  on  her  withered  dewlap  pour  the  ale. 
The  wisest  aunt,  telling  the  saddest  tale, 
Sometime  for  three-foot  stool  mistaketli  me ; 
Then  slip  I  from  her  bum,  down  topples  she, 
And  "tailor"  cries,  and  falls  into  a  cough; 
And  then  the  whole  quire  hold  their  hips  and  loffe, 
And  waxen  in  their  mirth,  and  neeze,  and  swear 
A  merrier  hour  was  never  wasted  there. — 
But  room  now,  Fairy !  here  comes  Oberon. 

Fai.  And  here  my  mistress.  —  Would  that  he  wore  gone  !"  * 

Probably  he  believed  in  these  things.  Why  not  ? 
everybody  else  believed  in  them  then.  They  suit 
our  climate.  As  the  Greek  mythology  suits  the  keen 
Attic  sky,  the  fairies,  indistinct  and  half-defined,  suit 


Midsummer  Night's  Dream,"  II.  1. 


288  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

a  land  of  mild  mists  and  gentle  airs.  They  confuse 
the  "maidens  of  the  villagery";  they  are  the  pagan- 
ism of  the  South  of  England. 

Can  it  be  made  out  what  were  Shakespeare's 
political  views  ?  We  think  it  certainly  can,  and  that 
without  difficulty.  From  the  English  historical  plays, 
it  distinctly  appears  that  he  accepted,  like  everybody 
then,  the  Constitution  of  his  country.  His  lot  was 
not  cast  in  an  age  of  political  controversy,  nor  of 
reform.  What  was,  was  from  of  old.  The  Wars  of 
the  Roses  had  made  it  very  evident  how  much  room 
there  was  for  the  evils  incident  to  a  hereditary 
monarchy  (for  instance,  those  of  a  controverted  suc- 
cession) and  the  evils  incident  to  an  aristocracy  (as 
want  of  public  spirit  and  audacious  selfishness)  to 
arise  and  continue  within  the  realm  of  England. 
Yet  they  had  not  repelled,  and  had  barely  discon- 
certed, our  conservative  ancestors.  They  had  not 
become  Jacobins;  they  did  not  concur  —  and  history, 
except  in  Shakespeare,  hardly  does  justice  to  them  — 
in  Jack  Cade's  notion  that  the  laws  should  come  out 
of  his  mouth,  or  that  the  commonwealth  was  to 
be  reformed  by  interlocutors  in  this  scene:  — 

"  George.  I  tell  thee,  Jack  Cade  the  clothier  means  to  dress  the 
commonwealth,  and  turn  it,  and  set  a  new  nap  upon  it. 

John.  So  he  had  need,  for  'tis  threadbare.  Well,  I  say  it  was 
never  merry  wrorld  in  England  since  gentlemen  came  up. 

Geo.     O  miserable  age !    Virtue  is  not  regarded  in  handicraftsmen. 

John.     The  nobility  think  scorn  to  go  in  leather  aprons. 

Geo.     Nay,  more,  the  king's  council  are  no  good  workmen. 

John.  True ;  and  yet  it  is  said,  Labor  in  thy  vocation  ;  which 
is  as  much  as  to  say  as.  Let  the  magistrates  be  laboring  men :  and 
therefore  should  we  be  magistrates. 

Geo.  Thou  hast  hit  it ;  for  there's  no  better  sign  of  a  brave 
mind  than  a  hard  hand. 

John.     I  see  them  !   I  see  them  !  "  * 

The  English  people  did  see  them,  and  know  them, 
and  therefore  have  rejected  them.  An  audience 


* "2  King  Henry  VI.,"  iv.  2. 


SHAKESPEARE.  289 


which,  bond  fide,  entered  into  the  merit  of  this  scene, 
would  never  believe  in  everybody's  suffrage.  They 
would  know  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  nonsense ; 
and  when  a  man  has  once  attained  to  that  deep  con- 
ception, you  may  be  sure  of  him  ever  after.  And 
though  it  would  be  absurd  to  say  that  Shakespeare 
originated  this  idea,  or  that  the  disbelief  in  simple 
democracy  is  owing  to  his  teaching  or  suggestions, 
yet  it  may  nevertheless  be  truly  said  that  he  shared 
in  the  peculiar  knowledge  of  men,  and  also  possessed 
the  peculiar  constitution  of  mind,  which  engenders 
this  effect.  The  author  of  '"'Coriolamis"  never  believed 
in  a  mob,  and  did  something  towards  preventing 
anybody  else  from  doing  so.  But  this  political  idea 
was  not  exactly  the  strongest  in  Shakespeare's  mind. 
We  think  he  had  two  other  stronger,  or  as  strong. 

First,  the  feeling  of  loyalty  to  the  ancient  polity  of 
this  country, —  not  because  it  was  good,  but  because 
it  existed.  In  his  time,  people  no  more  thought  of  the 
origin  of  the  monarchy  than  they  did  of  the  origin 
of  the  Mendip  Hills.  The  one  had  always  been  there, 
and  so  had  the  other.  God  (such  was  the  common 
notion)  had  made  both,  and  one  as  much  as  the  other. 
Everywhere,  in  that  age,  the  common  modes  of  politi- 
cal speech  assumed  the  existence  of  certain  utterly 
national  institutions,  and  would  have  been  worthless 
and  nonsensical  except  on  that  assumption.  This 
national  habit  appears,  as  it  ought  to  appear,  in 
our  national  dramatist.  A  great  divine  tells  us  that 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles  are  "forms  of  thought, ?'- 
inevitable  conditions  of  the  religious  understanding : 
in  politics,  "King,  Lords,  and  Commons"  are,  no 
doubt,  "forms  of  thought"  to  the  great  majority  of 
Englishmen, —  in  these  they  live,  and  beyond  these 
they  never  move.  You  can't  reason  on  the  removal 
(such  is  the  notion)  of  the  English  Channel,  nor  St. 
George's  Channel,  nor  can  you  of  the  English  Con- 
stitution in  like  manner.  It  is  to  most  of  us,  and  to 
the  happiest  of  us,  a  thing  immutable;  and  such,  no 
VOL.  I. —  19 


290  THE  TRAVELERS  IXS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

+ 

doubt,  it  was  to  Shakespeare,  —  which  if  any  one 
would  have  proved,  let  him  refer  at  random  to  any 
page  of  the  historical  English  plays. 

The  second  peculiar  tenet  which  we  ascribe  to  his 
political  creed  is  a  disbelief  in  the  middle  classes. 
We  fear  he  had  no  opinion  of  traders.  In  this  age, 
we  know,  it  is  held  that  the  keeping  of  a  shop  is 
equivalent  to  a  political  education.  Occasionally,  in 
country  villages,  where  the  trader  sells  everything, 
he  is  thought  to  know  nothing,  and  has  no  vote ;  but 
in  a  town  where  he  is  a  householder  (as  indeed  he  is 
in  the  country),  and  sells  only  one  thing,  there  we 
assume  that  he  knows  everything.  And  this  assump- 
tion is,  in  the  opinion  of  some  observers,  confirmed  by 
the  fact.  Sir  Walter  Scott  used  to  relate  that  when, 
after  a  trip  to  London,  he  returned  to  Tweedside,  he 
always  found  the  people  in  that  district  knew  more 
of  politics  than  the  Cabinet.*  And  so  it  is  with  the 
mercantile  community  in  modern  times.  If  you  are 
a  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  it  is  possible  that  you 
may  be  acquainted  with  finance  ;  but  if  you  sell  figs, 
it  is  certain  that  you  will.  Now,  we  nowhere  find 
this  laid  down  in  Shakespeare.  On  the  contrary,  you 
will  generally  find  that  when  a  "citizen"  is  men- 
tioned, he  generally  does  or  says  something  absurd. 
Shakespeare  had  a  clear  perception  that  it  is  possible 
to  bribe  a  class  as  well  as  an  individual,  and  that 
personal  obscurity  is  but  an  insecure  guarantee  for 
political  disinterestedness. 

' '  Moreover,  he  hath  left  you  all  his  walks, 
His  private  arbors  and  new-planted  orchards, 
On  this  side  Tiber ;  he  hath  left  them  you, 
And  to  your  heirs  forever  :  common  pleasures, 
To  walk  abroad  and  recreate  yourselves. 
Here  was  a  Caesar !   when  comes  such  another  ? " : 

He   everywhere   speaks  in  praise  of  a  tempered  and 
ordered  and  qualified  polity,  in  which  the  pecuniary 

*  Letter  to  Sidmouth,  April  20,  1821 ;  in  Lockhart,  Vol.  v.,  Chap.  iii. 
t"  Julius  Caesar,"  iii.  2. 


SHAKESPEARE.  291 


classes  have  a  certain  influence,  but  no  more ;  and 
shows  in  every  page  a  keen  sensibility  to  the  large 
views  and  high-souled  energies,  the  gentle  refine- 
ments and  disinterested  desires,  in  which  those 
classes  are  likely  to  be  especially  deficient.  He  is 
particularly  the  poet  of  personal  nobility,  though 
throughout  his  writings  there  is  a  sense  of  freedom  ; 
just  as  Milton  is  the  poet  of  freedom,  though  with 
an  underlying  reference  to  personal  nobility  :  indeed, 
we  might  well  expect  our  two  poets  to  combine  the 
appreciation  of  a  rude  and  generous  liberty  with  that 
of  a  delicate  and  refined  nobleness,  since  it  is  the 
union  of  these  two  elements  that  characterizes  our 
society  and  their  experience. 

There  are  two  things, —  good-tempered  sense  and 
ill-tempered  sense.  In  our  remarks  on  the  character 
of  Falstaff,  we  hope  we  have  made  it  very  clear  that 
Shakespeare  had  the  former ;  we  think  it  nearly  as 
certain  that  he  possessed  the  latter  also.  An  instance 
of  this  might  be  taken  from  that  contempt  for  the 
perspicacity  of  the  bourgeoisie  which  we  have  just 
been  mentioning.  It  is  within  the  limits  of  what 
may  be  called  malevolent  sense  to  take  extreme  and 
habitual  pleasure  in  remarking  the  foolish  opinions, 
the  narrow  notions,  and  [the]  fallacious  deductions 
which  seem  to  cling  to  the  pompous  and  prosperous 
man  of  business.  Ask  him  his  opinion  of  the  cur- 
rency question,  and  he  puts  "bills"  and  "bullion" 
together  in  a  sentence,  and  he  does  not  seem  to  care 
what  he  puts  between  them.  But  a  more  proper 
instance  of  (what  has  an  odd  sound)  the  malevolence 
of  Shakespeare  is  to  be  found  in  the  play  of  "Meas- 
ure for  Measure."  We  agree  with  Hazlitt  that  this 
play  seems  to  be  written,  perhaps  more  than  any 
other,  con  amore  and  with  a  relish  ;  and  this  seems 
to  be  the  reason  why,  notwithstanding  the  unpleasant 
nature  of  its  plot  and  the  absence  of  any  very  attrac- 
tive character,  it  is  yet  one  of  the  plays  which  take 
hold  on  the  mind  most  easily  and  most  powerfully. 


292        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Now,  the  entire  character  of  Angelo,  which  is  the 
expressive  feature  of  the  piece,  is  nothing  but  a  suc- 
cessful embodiment  of  the  pleasure,  the  malevolent 
pleasure,  which  a  warm-blooded  and  expansive  man 
takes  in  watching  the  rare,  the  dangerous  and  inani- 
mate excesses  of  the  constrained  and  cold-blooded. 
One  seems  to  see  Shakespeare,  with  his  bright  eyes 
and  his  large  lips  and  buoyant  face,  watching  with  a 
pleasant  excitement  the  excesses  of  his  thin-lipped 
and  calculating  creation,  as  though  they  were  the  ex- 
cesses of  a  real  person.  It  is  the  complete  picture  of 
a  natural  hypocrite,  who  does  not  consciously  disguise 
strong  impulses,  but  whose  very  passions  seem  of 
their  own  accord  to  have  disguised  themselves  and 
retreated  into  the  recesses  of  the  character,  yet  only 
to  recur  even  more  dangerously  when  their  proper 
period  is  expired,  when  the  will  is  cheated  into  secur- 
ity by  their  absence,  and  the  world  (and  it  may  be 
the  ''judicious  person"  himself)  is  impressed  with  a 
sure  reliance  in  his  chilling  and  remarkable  rectitude,. 
It  has,  we  believe,  been  doubted  whether  Shake- 
speare was  a  man  much  conversant  with  the  intimate 
society  of  women.  Of  course  no  one  denies  that  he 
possessed  a  great  knowledge  of  them,  —  a  capital  ac- 
quaintance with  their  excellences,  faults,  and  foibles  ; 
but  it  has  been  thought  that  this  was  the  result 
rather  of  imagination  than  of  society,  of  creative 
fancy  rather  than  of  perceptive  experience.  Now, 
that  Shakespeare  possessed,  among  other  singular 
qualities,  a  remarkable  imaginative  knowledge  of 
women,  is  quite  certain,  for  he  was  acquainted  with 
the  soliloquies  of  women.  A  woman,  we  suppose, 
like  a  man,  must  be  alone  in  order  to  speak  a 
soliloquy.  After  the  greatest  possible  intimacy  and 
experience,  it  must  still  be  imagination,  or  fancy  at 
least,  which  tells  any  man  what  a  woman  thinks  of 
herself  and  to  herself.  There  will  still  —  get  as  near 
the  limits  of  confidence  or  observation  as  you  can  — 
be  a  space  which  must  be  filled  up  from  other  means. 


SHAKESPEARE.  293 


Men  can  only  divine  the  truth ;  reserve,  indeed,  is 
a  part  of  its  charm.  Seeing,  therefore,  that  Shake- 
speare had  done  what  necessarily  and  certainly  must 
be  done  without  experience,  we  were  in  some  doubt 
whether  he  might  not  have  dispensed  with  it  alto- 
gether. A  grave  reviewer  cannot  know  these  things. 
We  thought  indeed  of  reasoning  that  since  the  de- 
lineations of  women  in  Shakespeare  were  admitted  to 
be  first-rate,  it  should  follow  —  at  least  there  was  a 
fair  presumption  —  that  no  means  or  aid  had  been 
wanting  to  their  production ;  and  that  consequently 
we  ought,  in  the  absence  of  distinct  evidence,  to 
assume  that  personal  intimacy  as  well  as  solitary 
imagination  had  been  concerned  in  their  production. 
And  we  meant  to  cite  the  '"questions  about  Octavia," 
which  Lord  Byron,  who  thought  he  had  the  means 
of  knowing,  declared  to  be  "woman  all  over.''* 

But  all  doubt  was  removed  and  all  conjecture  set 
to  rest  by  the  coming  in  of  an  ably  dressed  friend 
from  the  external  world,  who  mentioned  that  the 
language  of  Shakespeare's  women  was  essentially 
female  language  ;  that  there  were  certain  points  and 
peculiarities  in  the  English  of  cultivated  English- 
women which  made  it  a  language  of  itself,  which 
must  be  heard  familiarly  in  order  to  be  known.  And 
he  added,  "except  a  greater  use  of  words  of  Latin 
derivation,  as  was  natural  in  an  age  when  ladies 
received  a  learned  education,  a  few  words  not  now 
proper,  a  few  conceits  that  were  the  fashion  of  the 
time,  and  there  is  the  very  same  English  in  the 
women's  speeches  in  Shakespeare."  He  quoted  — 

"Think  not  I  love  him.  though  I  ask  for  him: 
'Tis  but  a  peevish  hoy  ;  —  yet  he  talks  well  ;  — 
But  what  care  I  for  words  ?  yet  words  do  well, 
When  he  that  speaks  them  pleases  those  that  hear. 
It  is  a  pretty  youth  :  —  not  very  pretty  :  — 
But  sure,  he's  proud  ;  and  yet  his  pride  becomes  him  : 
He'll  make  a  proper  man.     The  best  thin.tr  in  him 
Is  his  complexion  ;  and  faster  than  his  tongue 


*  Journal,  Nov.  1(3,  1813. 


294  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

Did  make  offense,  his  eye  did  heal  it  up. 

He  is  not  tall ;  yet  for  his  years  he's  tall : 

His  leg  is  but  so-so  ;  and  yet  'tis  well. 

There  was  a  pretty  redness  in  his  lip ; 

A  little  riper  and  more  lusty  red 

Than  that  mixed  in  his  cheek :  'twas  just  the  difference 

Betwixt  the  constant  red  and  mingled  damask. 

There  be  some  women,  Silvius,  had  they  marked  him 

In  parcels  as  I  did,  would  have  gone  near 

To  fall  in  love  with  him  :  but  for  my  part, 

I  love  him  not,  nor  hate  him  not ;  and  yet 

I  have  more  cause  to  hate  him  than  to  love  him: 

For  what  had  he  to  do  to  chide  at  me  ? 

He  said  my  eyes  were  black,  and  my  hair  black, 

And,  now  I  am  remembered,  scorned  at  me ; 

I  marvel  why  I  answered  not  again  : 

But  that's  all  one  ; "  * 

and  the  passage  of  Perdita's    cited  before   about  the 

daffodils  that 

"Take 

The  winds  of  March  with  beauty ;  violets  dim, 
But  sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes, 
Or  Cytherea's  breath  ; " 

and  said  that  these  were  conclusive.  But  we  have 
not,  ourselves,  heard  young  ladies  converse  in  that 
manner. 

Perhaps  it  is  in  his  power  of  delineating  women 
that  Shakespeare  contrasts  most  strikingly  with  the 
greatest  master  of  the  art  of  dialogue  in  antiquity, — 
we  mean  Plato.  It  will  no  doubt  be  said  that  the 
delineation  of  women  did  not  fall  within  Plato's  plan ; 
that  men's  life  was  in  that  age  so  separate  and  pre- 
dominant that  it  could  be  delineated  by  itself  and 
apart :  and  no  doubt  these  remarks  are  very  true. 
But  what  led  Plato  to  form  that  plan  ?  What  led 
him  to  select  that  peculiar  argumentative  aspect  of 
life,  in  which  the  masculine  element  is  in  so  high  a 
degree  superior  ?  We  believe  that  he  did  it  because 
he  felt  that  he  could  paint  that  kind  of  scene  much 

*  "As  You  Like  It,"  iii.  5. 


SHAKESPEARE.  295 


better  than  he  could  paint  any  other.  If  a  person 
will  consider  the  sort  of  conversation  that  was  held 
in  the  cool  summer  morning,  when  Socrates  was 
knocked  up  early  to  talk  definitions  and  philosophy 
with  Protagoras,  he  will  feel,  not  only  that  women 
would  fancy  such  dialogues  to  be  certainly  stupid, 
and  very  possibly  to  be  without  meaning,  but  also 
that  the  side  of  character  which  is  there  represented 
is  one  from  which  not  only  the  feminine  but  even  the 
epicene  element  is  nearly  if  not  perfectly  excluded.  It 
is  the  intellect  surveying  and  delineating  intellectual 
characteristics.  We  have  a  dialogue  of  thinking  fac- 
ulties :  the  character  of  every  man  is  delineated  by 
showing  us,  not  his  mode  of  action  or  feeling,  but  his 
mode  of  thinking,  alone  and  by  itself.  The  pure 
mind,  purged  of  all  passion  and  affection,  strives  to 
view  and  describe  others  in  like  manner;  and  the 
singularity  is,  that  the  likenesses  so  taken  are  so 
good,  —  that  the  accurate  copying  of  the  merely  intel- 
lectual effects  and  indications  of  character  gives  so 
true  and  so  firm  an  impression  of  the  whole  charac- 
ter,—  that  a  daguerreotype  of  the  mind  should  almost 
seem  to  be  a  delineation  of  the  life.  But  though  in 
the  hand  of  a  consummate  artist  such  a  way  of  rep- 
resentation may  in  some  sense  succeed  in  the  case  of 
men,  it  would  certainly  seem  sure  to  fail  in  the  case 
of  women.  The  mere  intellect  of  a  woman  is  a  mere 
nothing  :  it  originates  nothing,  it  transmits  nothing, 
it  retains  nothing ;  it  has  little  life  of  its  own,  and 
therefore  it  can  hardly  be  expected  to  attain  any 
vigor.  Of  the  lofty  Platonic  world  of  the  ideas, 
which  the  soul  in  the  old  doctrine  was  to  arrive  at 
by  pure  and  continuous  reasoning,  women  were  never 
expected  to  know  anything.  Plato,  though  Mr.  Grote 
denies  that  he  was  a  practical  man,  was  much  too 
practical  for  that :  he  reserved  his  teaching  for  people 
whose  belief  was  regulated  and  induced  in  some 
measure  by  abstract  investigations;  who  had  an  in- 
terest in  the  pure  and  (as  it  were)  geometrical  truth 


296  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

itself;  who  had  an  intellectual  character  (apart  from 
and  accessory  to  their  other  character)  capable  of 
being  viewed  as  a  large  and  substantial  existence. 
Shakespeare's  being,  like  a  woman's,  worked  as  a 
whole.  He  was  capable  of  intellectual  abstractedness, 
but  commonly  he  was  touched  with  the  sense  of 
earth.  One  thinks  of  him  as  firmly  set  on  our  coarse 
world  of  common  clay,  but  from  it  he  could  paint 
the  moving  essence  of  thoughtful  feeling, —  which  is 
the  best  refinement  of  the  best  women.  Imogen  or 
Juliet  would  have  thought  little  of  the  conversation 
of  Gorgias. 

On  few  subjects  has  more  nonsense  been  written 
than  on  the  learning  of  Shakespeare.  In  former 
times  the  established  tenet  was,  that  he  was  ac- 
quainted with  the  entire  range  of  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics,  and  familiarly  resorted  to  Sophocles 
and  ^Eschylus  as  guides  and  models.  This  creed  re- 
posed not  so  much  on  any  painful  or  elaborate  criti- 
cism of  Shakespeare's  plays,  as  on  one  of  the  a  priori 
assumptions  permitted  to  the  indolence  of  the  wise 
old  world :  it  was  then  considered  clear,  by  all  crit- 
ics, that  no  one  could  write  good  English  who  could 
not  also  write  bad  Latin.  Questioning  skepticism  has 
rejected  this  axiom,  and  refuted  with  contemptuous 
facility  the  slight  attempt  which  had  been  made  to 
verify  this  case  of  it  from  the  evidence  of  the  plays 
themselves.  But  the  new  school,  not  content  with 
showing  that  Shakespeare  was  no  formed  or  elaborate 
scholar,  propounded  the  idea  that  he  was  quite  igno- 
rant, just  as  Mr.  Croker  "demonstrates"  that  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte  could  scarcely  write  or  read.  The 
answer  is,  that  Shakespeare  wrote  his  plays,  and  that 
those  plays  show  not  only  a  very  powerful,  but  also 
a  very  cultivated  mind.  A  hard  student  Shakespeare 
was  not,  yet  he  was  a  happy  and  pleased  reader  of 
interesting  books.  He  was  a  natural  reader :  when  a 
book  was  dull  he  put  it  down,  when  it  looked  fasci- 
nating he  took  it  up ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that 


SHAKESPEARE.  297 


he  remembered  and  mastered  what  he  read.  Lively 
books,  read  with  lively  interest,  leave  strong  and  liv- 
ing recollections.  The  instructors,  no  doubt,  say  that 
they  ought  not  to  do  so,  and  inculcate  the  necessity 
of  dry  reading;  yet  the  good  sense  of  a  busy  public 
has  practically  discovered  that  what  is  read  easily  is 
recollected  easily,  and  what  is  read  with  difficulty  is 
remembered  with  more.  It  is  certain  that  Shake- 
speare read  the  novels  of  his  time,  for  he  has  founded 
on  them  the  stories  of  his  plays;  he  read  Plutarch, 
for  his  words  still  live  in  the  dialogue  of  the  "proud 
Roman"  plays;  and  it  is  remarkable  that  Montaigne 
is  the  only  philosopher  that  Shakespeare  can  be  proved 
to  have  read,  because  he  deals  more  than  any  other 
philosopher  with  the  first  impressions  of  things  which 
exist.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  doubted  if  Shake- 
speare would  have  perused  his  commentators.  Cer- 
tainly he  would  have  never  read  a  page  of  this  review; 
and  we  go  so  far  as  to  doubt  whether  he  would  have 
been  pleased  with  the  admirable  discourses  of  M.  Gui- 
zot,  which  we  ourselves,  though  ardent  admirers  of 
his  style  and  ideas,  still  find  it  a  little  difficult  to 
read;  and  what  would  he  have  thought  of  the  follow- 
ing speculations  of  an  anonymous  individual,  whose 
notes  have  been  recently  published  in  a  fine  octavo 
by  Mr.  Collier,  and  according  to  the  periodical  essay- 
ists, "contribute  valuable  suggestions  to  the  illustra- 
tion of  the  immortal  bard  "  ? 

"THE  Two  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA. 

'Act  I.     Scene  1. 
'  P.  92.     The  reading  of  the   subsequent  line  has  hitherto  been 

"Tis  true;   for  you  are  over  boots  in  love;" 

but  the  manuscript  corrector  of  the  Folio,  1032,  has  changed  it  to 
"Tis  true;  but  you  are  over  boots  in  love," 

which  seems  more  consistent  with  the  course  of  the  dialogue :  for 
Proteus  remarking  that  Leander  had  been  "more  than  over  shoes 
in  love"  with  Hero,  Valentine  answers  that  Proteus  was  even  more 


298  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

deeply  in  love  than   Leander.     Proteus  observes  of  the  fable  of 
Hero  and  Leander — 

"That's  a  deep  story  of  a  deeper  love, 
For  he  was  more  than  over  shoes  in  love." 

Valentine  retorts  — 

"'Tis  true;  but  you  are  over  boots  in  love." 

For  instead  of  but  was  perhaps  caught  by  the  compositor  from  the 
preceding  line." 

It  is  difficult  to  fancy  Shakespeare  perusing  a  vol- 
ume of  such  annotations,  though  we  allow  that  we 
admire  them  ourselves.  As  to  the  controversy  on  his 
school  learning,  we  have  only  to  say  that  though  the 
alleged  imitations  of  the  Greek  tragedians  are  mere 
nonsense,  yet  there  is  clear  evidence  that  Shakespeare 
received  the  ordinary  grammar-school  education  of 
his  time,  and  that  he  had  derived  from  the  pain  and 
suffering  of  several  years,  not  exactly  an  acquaint- 
ance with  Greek  or  Latin,  but,  like  Eton  boys,  a  firm 
conviction  that  there  are  such  languages. 

Another  controversy  has  been  raised  as  to  whether 
Shakespeare  was  religious.  In  the  old  editions  it  is 
commonly  enough  laid  down  that  when  writing  his 
plays  he  had  no  desire  to  fill  the  Globe  Theater,  but 
that  his  intentions  were  of  the  following  descrip- 
tion: —  "In  this  play  ["Cymbeline"]  Shakespeare  has 
strongly  depicted  the  frailties  of  our  nature,  and  the 
effect  of  vicious  passions  on  the  human  mind.  In 
the  fate  of  the  Queen  we  behold  the  adept  in  perfidy 
justly  sacrificed  by  the  arts  she  had,  with  unnatural 
ambition,  prepared  for  others ;  and  in  reviewing  her 
death  and  that  of  Cloten,  we  may  easily  call  to  mind 
the  words  of  Scripture,"  etc.  And  of  "King  Lear" 
it  is  observed  with  great  confidence,  that  Shakespeare, 
"no  doubt,  intended  to  mark  particularly  the  afflict- 
ing character  of  children's  ingratitude  to  their  par- 
ents, and  the  conduct  of  Goneril  and  Regan  to  each 
other ;  especially  in  the  former's  poisoning  the  latter, 
and  laying  hands  on  herself,  we  are  taught  that  those 


SHAKESPEARE.  299 


who  want  gratitude  towards  their  parents  (who  gave 
them  their  being,  fed  them,  nurtured  them  to  man's 
estate)  will  not  scruple  to  commit  more  barbarous 
crimes,  and  easily  to  forget  that  by  destroying  their 
body  they  destroy  their  soul  also."  And  Dr.  Ulrici, 
a  very  learned  and  illegible  writer,  has  discovered 
that  in  every  one  of  his  plays  Shakespeare  had  in 
view  the  inculcation  of  the  peculiar  sentiments  and 
doctrines  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  considers  the 
''Midsummer  Night's  Dream''  to  be  a  specimen  of 
the  lay  or  amateur  sermon.  This  is  what  Dr.  Ulrici 
thinks  of  Shakespeare  ;  but  what  would  Shakespeare 
have  thought  of  Dr.  Ulrici  ?  We  believe  that  "  Via, 
Goodman  Dull,"  is  nearly  the  remark  which  the 
learned  professor  would  have  received  from  the  poet 
to  whom  his  very  careful  treatise  is  devoted.  And 
yet,  without  prying  into  the  Teutonic  mysteries,  a 
gentleman  of  missionary  aptitudes  might  be  tempted 
to  remark  that  in  many  points  Shakespeare  is  quali- 
fied to  administer  a  rebuke  to  people  of  the  prevalent 
religion.  Meeting  a  certain  religionist  is  like  striking 
the  corner  of  a  wall :  he  is  possessed  of  a  firm  and 
rigid  persuasion  that  you  must  leave  off  this  and 
that,  stop,  cry,  be  anxious,  be  advised,  and  above 
all  things  refrain  from  doing  what  you  like,  for 
nothing  is  so  bad  for  any  one  as  that.  And  in  quite 
another  quarter  of  the  religious  hemisphere  we 
occasionally  encounter  gentlemen  who  have  most 
likely  studied  at  the  feet  of  Dr.  Ulrici.  or  at  least  of 
an  equivalent  Gamaliel,  and  who,  when  we  or  such 
as  we,  speaking  the  language  of  mortality,  remark 
of  a  pleasing  friend,  "Nice  fellow,  so  and  so!  Good 
fellow  as  ever  lived  ! "  reply  sternly,  upon  an  unsus- 
pecting reviewer,  with — "Sir,  is  he  an  carm'st  man?'' 
To  which,  in  some  cases,  we  are  unable  to  return  a 
sufficient  answer.  Yet  Shakespeare  (differing,  in  that 
respect  at  least,  from  the  disciples  of  Carlyle)  had, 
we  suspect,  an  objection  to  grim  people,  and  we  fear 
would  have  liked  the  society  of  Mercutio  better  than 
that  of  a  dreary  divine,  and  preferred  Ophelia  or 


300  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

"that  Juliet"  to  a  female  philanthropist  of  sinewy 
aspect.  And  seriously,  if  this  world  is  not  all  evil, 
he  who  has  understood  and  painted  it  best  must 
probably  have  some  good.  If  the  underlying  and 
almighty  essence  of  this  world  be  good,  then  it  is 
likely  that  the  writer  who  most  deeply  approached  to 
that  essence  will  be  himself  good.  There  is  a  religion 
of  week-days  as  well  as  of  Sundays,  of  "cakes 
and  ale "  *  as  well  as  of  pews  and  altar  cloths. 
This  England  lay  before  Shakespeare  as  it  lies  be- 
fore us  all,  with  its  green  fields,  and  its  long  hedge- 
rows, and  its  many  trees,  and  its  great  towns,  and 
its  endless  hamlets,  and  its  motley  society,  and  its 
long  history,  and  its  bold  exploits,  and  its  gathering 
power;  and  he  saw  that  they  were  good.  To  him, 
perhaps,  more  than  to  any  one  else,  has  it  been 
given  to  see  that  they  were  a  great  unity,  a  great 
religious  object ;  that  if  you  could  only  descend  to 
the  inner  life,  to  the  deep  things,  to  the  secret 
principles  of  its  noble  vigor,  to  the  essence  of  char- 
acter, to  what  we  know  of  Hamlet  and  seem  to 
fancy  of  Ophelia,  we  might,  so  far  as  we  are  capable 
of  so  doing,  understand  the  nature  which  God  has 
made.  Let  us,  then,  think  of  him  not  as  a  teacher 
of  dry  dogmas  or  a  sayer  of  hard  sayings,  but  as 

' '  A  priest  to  us  all, 
Of  the  wonder  and  bloom  of  the  world,  "t 

a  teacher  of  the  hearts  of  men  and  women ;  one 
from  whom  may  be  learned  something  of  that  in- 
most principle  that  ever  modulates 

' '  "With  murmurs  of  the  air, 
And  motions  of  the  forests  and  the  sea, 
And  voice  of  living  beings,  and  woven  hymns 
Of  night  and  day,  and  the  deep  heart  of  man."t 

We  must  pause,  lest  our  readers  reject  us,  as  the 
Bishop  of  Durham  the  poor  curate,  because  he  was 
"mystical  and  confused." 


*"  Twelfth  Night,"  iii.  2.      t  Matthew  Arnold,  "The  Youth  of  Nature." 
I  Shelley,  "  Alastor." 


SHAKESPEARE.  301 


Yet  it  must  be  allowed  that  Shakespeare  was 
worldly;  and  the  proof  of  it  is,  that  he  succeeded  in 
the  world.  Possibly  this  is  the  point  on  which  we 
are  most  richly  indebted  to  tradition.  We  see  gen- 
erally, indeed,  in  Shakespeare's  works,  the  popular 
author,  the  successful  dramatist :  there  is  a  life  and 
play  in  his  writings  rarely  to  be  found  except  in 
those  who  have  had  habitual  good  luck,  and  who,  by 
the  tact  of  experience,  feel  the  minds  of  their  readers 
at  every  word,  as  a  good  rider  feels  the  mouth  of  his 
horse.  But  it  would  have  been  difficult  quite  to  make 
out  whether  the  profits  so  accruing  had  been  profit- 
ably invested,  —  whether  the  genius  to  create  such 
illusions  was  accompanied  with  the  care  and  judg- 
ment necessary  to  put  out  their  proceeds  properly  in 
actual  life.  We  could  only  have  said  that  there  was 
a  general  impression  of  entire  calmness  and  equability 
in  his  principal  works  rarely  to  be  found  where 
there  is  much  pain,  which  usually  makes  gaps  in  the 
work  and  dislocates  the  balance  of  the  mind.  But 
happily  here,  and  here  almost  alone,  we  are  on  sure 
historical  ground.  The  reverential  nature  of  English- 
men has  carefully  preserved  what  they  thought  the 
great  excellence  of  their  poet,  —  that  he  made  a  for- 
tune.* It  is  certain  that  Shakespeare  was  proprietor 
of  the  Globe  Theater,  that  he  made  money  there, 
and  invested  the  same  in  land  at  Stratford-on-Avon ; 
and  probably  no  circumstance  in  his  life  ever  gave 
him  so  much  pleasure.  It  was  a  great  thing  that  he-, 
the  son  of  the  wool-comber,  the  poacher,  the  good- 
for-nothing,  the  vagabond  (for  so  we  fear  the  phrase 


*The  only  antiquarian  thing  which  can  he  fairly  called  an  anecdote  of 
Shakespeare  is,  that  Mrs.  Allcyne,  a  shrewd  woman  in  those  times,  and  mar- 
ried to  Mr.  Alleyne,  the  founder  of  Dulwich  Hospital,  was  one  day,  in  the 
absence  of  her  husband,  applied  to  on  some  matter  by  a  player  who  gave  a 
reference  to  Mr.  Hemminge  nhe  "notorious"  Mr.  Hemmingr,  the  commen- 
tators say)  and  to  Mr.  Shakespeare  of  the  Globe,  and  that  the  latter,  when 
referred  to,  said,  "Yes,  certainly,  he  knew  him.  and  he  was  a  rascal  and  good- 
for-nothing."  The  proper  speech  of  a  substantial  mau,  such  as  it  Is  worth 
while  to  give  a  reference  to. —  B. 


302  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

went  in  Shakespeare's  youth),  should  return  upon  the 
old  scene  a  substantial  man,  a  person  of  capital,  a 
freeholder,  a  gentleman  to  be  respected,  and  over 
whom  even  a  burgess  could  not  affect  the  least 
superiority.  The  great  pleasure  in  life  is  doing  what 
people  say  you  cannot  do.  Why  did  Mr.  Disraeli 
take  the  duties  of  the  Exchequer  with  so  much 
relish  ?  Because  people  said  he  was  a  novelist,  an 
ad  captandum  man,  and  —  monstrum  horrendum!  —  a 
Jew  that  could  not  add  up.  No  doubt  it  pleased  his 
inmost  soul  to  do  the  work  of  the  red-tape  people 
better  than  those  who  could  do  nothing  else.  And  so 
with  Shakespeare  :  it  pleased  him  to  be  respected,  by 
those  whom  he  had  respected  with  boyish  reverence 
but  who  had  rejected  the  imaginative  man,  on  their 
own  ground  and  in  their  own  subject,  by  the  only 
title  which  they  would  regard,  —  in  a  word,  as  a 
moneyed  man.  We  seem  to  see  him  eying  the 
burgesses  with  good-humored  fellowship  and  genial 
(though  suppressed  and  half-unconscious)  contempt, 
drawing  out  their  old  stories  and  acquiescing  in 
their  foolish  notions,  with  everything  in  his  head 
and  easy  sayings  upon  his  tongue,  a  full  mind,  and 
a  deep  dark  eye  that  played  upon  an  easy  scene ; 
now  in  fanciful  solitude,  now  in  cheerful  society ; 
now  occupied  with  deep  thoughts,  now  and  equally 
so  with  trivial  recreations,  forgetting  the  dramatist 
in  the  man  of  substance,  and  the  poet  in  the  happy 
companion  ;  beloved  and  even  respected,  with  a  hope 
for  every  one  and  a  smile  for  all. 


JOHN  MILTON* 

(1859.) 

THE  "  Life  of  Milton,"  by  Prof.  Masson,  is  a  difficulty 
for  the  critics.  It  is  very  laborious,  very  learned,  and 
in  the  main,  we  believe,  very  accurate ;  it  is  exceed- 
ingly long,  —  there  are  780  pages  in  this  volume,  and 
there  are  to  be  two  volumes  more  ;  it  touches  on  very 
many  subjects,  and  each  of  these  has  been  investi- 
gated to  the  very  best  of  the  author's  ability.  No  one 
can  wish  to  speak  with  censure  of  a  book  on  which 
so  much  genuine  labor  has  been  expended ;  and  yet 
we  are  bound,  as  true  critics,  to  say  that  we  think  it 
has  been  composed  upon  a  principle  that  is  utterly 
erroneous.  In  justice  to  ourselves  we  must  explain 
our  meaning. 

There  are  two  methods  on  which  biography  may 
consistently  be  •written.  The  first  of  these  is  what 
we  may  call  the  " exhaustive"  method.  Every  fact 
which  is  known  about  the  hero  may  be  told  us  ; 
everything  which  he  did,  everything  which  he  would 
not  do,  everything  which  other  people  did  to  him, 
everything  which  other  people  would  not  do  to  him, 
may  be  narrated  at  full  length.  We  may  have  a 
complete  picture  of  all  the  events  of  his  life  ;  of  all 
which  he  underwent,  and  all  which  he  achieved.  We 


*The  Life  of  John  Milton,  narrated  in  connection  with  the  Political, 
Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  time.  By  David  Musson,  M.  A., 
Professor  of  English  Literature  in  University  College,  London.  Cambridge : 
Macmillan. 

An  Account  of  the  Life,  Opinions,  and  Writings  of  John  Milton.  By 
Thomas  Keightlcy ;  with  an  Introduction  to  "Paradise  Lost."  London: 
Chapman  A:  Hall. 

The  l'oi;m«  of  Milton,  with  Notes  by  Thomas  Keightley.  London: 
Chapman  &  Hall. 

( 1303 ) 


304  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

may,  as  Mr.  Carlyle  expresses  it,  have  a  complete  ac- 
count "of  his  effect  upon  the  universe,  and  of  the 
effect  of  the  universe  upon  him."*  "We  admit  that 
biographies  of  this  species  would  be  very  long,  and 
generally  very  tedious ;  we  know  that  the  world  could 
not  contain  very  many  of  them :  but  nevertheless,  the 
principle  on  which  they  may  be  written  is  intelligible. 
The  second  method  on  which  the  life  of  a  man 
may  be  written  is  the  selective.  Instead  of  telling 
everything,  we  may  choose  what  we  will  tell.  "We 
may  select  out  of  the  numberless  events,  from  among 
the  innumerable  actions  of  his  life,  those  events  and 
those  actions  which  exemplify  his  true  character, 
which  prove  to  us  what  were  the  true  limits  of  his 
talents,  what  was  the  degree  of  his  deficiencies,  which 
were  his  defects,  which  his  vices ;  in  a  word,  we  may 
select  the  traits  and  the  particulars  which  seem  to 
give  us  the  best  idea  of  the  man  as  he  lived  and  as 
he  was.  On  this  side  the  Flood,  as  Sydney  Smith 
would  have  said,  we  should  have  fancied  that  this 
was  the  only  practicable  principle  on  which  biogra- 
phies can  be  written  about  persons  of  whom  ma'ny 
details,  are  recorded.  For  ancient  heroes  the  exhaust- 
ive method  is  possible :  all  that  can  be  known  of 
them  is  contained  in  a  few  short  passages  of  Greek 
and  Latin,  and  it  is  quite  possible  to  say  whatever 
can  be  said  about  every  one  of  these;  the  result 
would  not  be  unreasonably  bulky,  though  it  might  be 
dull.  But  in  the  case  of  men  who  have  lived  in  the 
thick  of  the  crowded  modern  world,  no  such  course 
is  admissible;  overmuch  may  be  said,  and  we  must 
choose  what  we  will  say.  Biographers,  however,  are 
rarely  bold  enough  to  adopt  the  selective  method  con- 
sistently. They  have,  we  suspect,  the  fear  of  the  crit- 
ics before  their  eyes.  They  do  not  like  that  it  should 
be  said  that  "the  work  of  the  learned  gentleman  con- 
tains serious  omissions :  the  events  of  1562  are  not 
mentioned;  those  of  October,  1579,  are  narrated  but 
very  cursorily " ;  and  we  fear  that  in  any  case  such 

*  Review  of  Lockliart's  Scott. 


JOHN   MILTON.  305 


remarks  will  be  made.  Very  learned  people  are 
pleased  to  show  that  they  know  what  is  not  in  the 
book ;  sometimes  they  may  hint  that  perhaps  the 
author  did  not  know  it,  or  surely  he  would  have 
mentioned  it.  But  a  biographer  who  wishes  to  write 
what  most  people  of  cultivation  will  be  pleased  to 
read  must  be  courageous  enough  to  face  the  pain  of 
such  censures.  He  must  choose,  as  we  have  ex- 
plained, the  characteristic  parts  of  his  subject :  and 
all  that  he  has  to  take  care  of  besides  is,  so  to 
narrate  them  that  their  characteristic  elements  shall 
be  shown  ;  to  give  such  an  account  of  the  general 
career  as  may  make  it  clear  what  these  chosen 
events  really  were,  —  to  show  their  respective  bear- 
ings to  one  another  ;  to  delineate  what  is  expressive 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  it  expressive. 

This  plan  of  biography  is,  however,  by  no  means 
that  of  Mr.  Masson  :  he  has  no  dread  of  overgrown 
bulk  and  overwhelming  copiousness.  He  finds  indeed 
what  we  have  called  the  "exhaustive  method"  in- 
sufficient :  he  not  only  wishes  to  narrate  in  full  the 
life  of  Milton,  but  to  add  those  of  his  contempora- 
ries likewise  ;  he  seems  to  wish  to  tell  us  not  only 
what  Milton  did,  but  also  what  every  one  else  did 
in  Great  Britain  during  his  lifetime.  He  intends  his 
book  to  be  not 

"merely  a  biography  of  Milton,  but  also  in  some  sort  a  continuous 
history  of  his  time.  .  .  .  The  suggestions  of  Milton's  life  have 
indeed  determined  the  tracks  of  these  historical  researches  and 
expositions,  sometimes  through  the  literature  of  the  period,  some- 
times through  its  civil  and  ecclesiastical  politics ;  but  the  extent  to 
which  I  have  pursued  them,  and  the  space  which  I  have  assigned 
to  them,  have  been  determined  by  my  desire  to  present,  by  their 
combination,  something  like  a  connected  historical  view  of  British 
thought  and  British  society  in  general  prior  to  the  great  Revolution." 

We  need  not  do  more  than  observe  that  this  union 
of  heterogeneous  aims  must  always  end,  as  it  has 
in  this  case,  in  the  production  of  a  work  at  once 
overgrown  and  incomplete.  A  groat  deal  which  has 
only  a  slight  bearing  on  the  character  of  Milton  is 
VOL.  I.— 20 


306  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

inserted ;  much  that  is  necessary  to  a  true  history 
of  "British  thought  and  British  society"  is  of  neces- 
sity left  out.  The  period  of  Milton's  life  which  is 
included  in  the  published  volume  makes  the  absurd- 
ity especially  apparent.  In  middle  life  Milton  was 
a  great  controversialist  on  contemporary  topics  ;  and 
though  it  would  not  be  proper  for  a  biographer  to 
load  his  pages  with  a  full  account  of  all  such  con- 
troversies, yet  some  notice  of  the  most  characteristic 
of  them  would  be  expected  from  him.  In  this  part 
of  Milton's  life  some  reference  to  public  events 
would  be  necessary ;  and  we  should  not  severely 
censure  a  biographer  if  the  great  interest  of  those 
events  induced  him  to  stray  a  little  from  his  topic. 
But  the  first  thirty  years  of  Milton's  life  require  a 
very  different  treatment.  He  passed  those  years  in 
the  ordinary  musings  of  a  studious  and  meditat- 
ive youth;  it  was  the  period  of  "Lycidas"  and 
"Comus";  he  then  dreamed  the 

"Sights  which  youthful  poets  dream 
,         On  summer  eve  by  haunted  stream."* 

We  do  not  wish  to  have  this  part  of  his  life  dis- 
turbed, to  a  greater  extent  than  may  be  necessary, 
with  the  harshness  of  public  affairs.  Nor  is  it  neces- 
sary that  it  should  be  so  disturbed  :  a  life  of  poetic 
retirement  requires  but  little  reference  to  anything 
except  itself ;  in  a  biography  of  Mr.  Tennyson  we 
should  not  expect  to  hear  of  the  Reform  Bill  or  the 
Corn  Laws.  Mr.  Masson  is,  however,  of  a  different 
opinion  :  he  thinks  it  necessary  to  tell  us,  not  only 
all  which  Milton  did,  but  everything  also  that  he 
might  have  heard  of. 

The  biography  of  Mr.  Keightley  is  on  a  very  dif- 
ferent scale  :  he  tells  the  story  of  Milton's  career  in 
about  half  a  small  volume.  Probably  this  is  a  little 
too  concise,  and  the  narrative  is  somewhat  dry  and 
bare.  It  is  often,  however,  acute,  and  is  always 
clear ;  and  even  were  its  defects  greater  than  they 

*"L' Allegro." 


JOHN   MILTON.  307 


are,  we  should  think  it  unseemly  to  criticize  the  last 
work  of  one  who  has  performed  so  many  useful 
services  to  literature  with  extreme  severity. 

The  bare  outline  of  Milton's  life  is  very  well 
known.  We  have  all  heard  that  he  was  born  in  the 
latter  years  of  King  James,  just  when  Puritanism 
was  collecting  its  strength  for  the  approaching  strug- 
gle ;  that  his  father  and  mother  were  quiet  good 
people,  inclined,  but  not  immoderately,  to  that  per- 
suasion; that  he  went  up  to  Cambridge  early,  and  had 
some  kind  of  dissension  with  the  authorities  there  ; 
that  the  course  of  his  youth  was  in  a  singular 
degree  pure  and  staid ;  that  in  boyhood  he  was  a 
devourer  of  books,  and  that  he  early  became,  and 
always  remained,  a  severely  studious  man  ;  that  he 
married,  and  had  difficulties  of  a  peculiar  character 
with  his  first  wife  ;  that  he  wrote  on  divorce  ;  that 
after  the  death  of  his  first  wife,  he  married  a  second 
time  a  lady  who  died  very  soon,  and  a  third  time  a 
person  who  survived  him  more  than  fifty  years ;  that 
he  wrote  early  poems  of  singular  beauty,  which  we 
still  read;  that  he  traveled  in  Italy,  and  exhibited 
his  learning  in  the  academies  there  ;  that  he  plunged 
deep  in  the  theological  and  political  controversies  of 
his  time  ;  that  he  kept  a  school,  —  or  rather,  in  our 
more  modern  phrase,  took  pupils ;  that  he  was  a 
republican  of  a  peculiar  kind,  and  of  "  no  church," 
which  Dr.  Johnson  thought  dangerous ;  *  that  he 
was  Secretary  for  Foreign  Languages  under  the  Long 
Parliament,  and  retained  that  office  after  the  coup 
d'etat  of  Cromwell ;  that  he  defended  the  death  of 
Charles  L,  and  became  blind  from  writing  a  book  in 
haste  upon  that  subject  ;  that  after  the  Restoration 
he  was  naturally  in  a  position  of  some  danger  and 
much  difficulty  ;  that  in  the  midst  of  that  difficulty 
he  wrote  "Paradise  Lost";  that  he  did  not  fail  in 
"heart  or  hope,"  t  but  lived  for  fourteen  years  after 
the  destruction  of  all  for  which  he  had  labored,  in 
serene  retirement,  "though  fallen  on  evil  days, 


*Life  of  Milton.  t  Sonnet  xlx. 


308  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

though  fallen  on  evil  times,"*  —  all  this  we  have 
heard  from  our  boyhood.  How  much  is  wanting  to 
complete  the  picture  —  how  many  traits,  both  noble 
and  painful,  might  be  recovered  from  the  past  —  we 
shall  never  know,  till  some  biographer  skilled  in 
interpreting  the  details  of  human  nature  shall  select 
this  subject  for  his  art.  All  that  we  can  hope  to 
do  in  an  essay  like  this  is,  to  throw  together  some 
miscellaneous  remarks  on  the  character  of  the  Puri- 
tan poet,  and  on  the  peculiarities  of  his  works  ;  and 
if  in  any  part  of  them  we  may  seem  to  make  unus- 
ual criticisms,  and  to  be  over-ready  with  depreciation 
or  objection,  our  excuse  must  be,  that  we  wish  to 
paint  a  likeness,  and  that  the  harsher  features  of  the 
subject  should  have  a  prominence  even  in  an  outline. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  goodness  conspicuous  in 
the  world,  and  often  made  the  subject  of  contrast 
there  ;  for  which,  however,  we  seem  to  want  exact 
words,  and  which  we  are  obliged  to  describe  rather 
vaguely  and  incompletely.  These  characters  may  in 
one  aspect  be  called  the  "sensuous"  and  the  "as- 
cetic." The  character  of  the  first  is  that  which  is 
almost  personified  in  the  poet-king  of  Israel,  whose 
actions  and  whose  history  have  been  "improved"  so 
often  by  various  writers  that  it  now  seems  trite  even 
to  allude  to  them.  Nevertheless,  the  particular  virtues 
and  the  particular  career  of  David  seem  to  embody 
the  idea  of  what  may  be  called  "sensuous  goodness" 
far  more  completely  than  a  living  being  in  general 
comes  near  to  an  abstract  idea.  There  may  have 
been  shades  in  the  actual  man  which  would  have 
modified  the  resemblance  ;  but  in  the  portrait  which 
has  been  handed  down  to  us,  the  traits  are  perfect 
and  the  approximation  exact.  The  principle  of  this 
character  is  its  sensibility  to  outward  stimulus:  it  is 
moved  by  all  which  occurs,  stirred  by  all  which  hap- 
pens, open  to  the  influences  of  whatever  it  sees,  hears, 
or  meets  with.  The  certain  consequence  of  this 

*"  Though  fallen  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fallen,  and  evil  tongues."  — "Paradise  Lost,"  Book  vii. 


JOHN  MILTON.  309 


mental  constitution  is  a  peculiar  liability  to  temptation. 
Men  are,  according  to  the  divine,  "put  upon  their  trial 
through  the  senses."  It  is  through  the  constant  sug- 
gestions of  the  outer  world  that  our  minds  are  stimu- 
lated, that  our  will  has  the  chance  of  a  choice,  that 
moral  life  becomes  possible.  The  sensibility  to  this 
external  stimulus  brings  with  it,  when  men  have  it  to 
excess,  an  unusual  access  of  moral  difficulty.  Every- 
thing acts  on  them,  and  everything  has  a  chance  of 
turning  them  aside;  the  most  tempting  things  act 
upon  them  very  deeply,  and  their  influence,  in  conse- 
quence, is  extreme.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  errors  of 
such  men  are  great.  We  need  not  point  the  moral :  — 

"Dizzied  faith  and  guilt  and  woe; 
Loftiest  aims  by  earth  defiled, 
Gleams  of  wisdom  sin-beguiled, 
Sated  power's  tyrannic  mood, 
Counsels  shared  with  men  of  blood, 
Sad  success,  parental  tears, 
And  a  dreary  gift  of  years."* 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  excellence  of  such  men 
has  a  charm,  a  kind  of  sensuous  sweetness,  that  is 
its  own.  Being  conscious  of  frailty,  they  are  tender 
to  the  imperfect;  being  sensitive  to  this  world,  they 
sympathize  with  the  world ;  being  familiar  with  all 
the  moral  incidents  of  life,  their  goodness  has  a  rich- 
ness and  a  complication :  they  fascinate  their  own 
age,  and  in  their  deaths  they  are  "not  divided"  from 
the  love  of  others.  Their  peculiar  sensibility  gives  a 
depth  to  their  religion :  it  is  at  once  deeper  and  more 
human  than  that  of  other  men.  As  their  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  those  whom  they  have  seen  is  great, 
so  it  is  with  their  knowledge  of  Him  whom  they 
have  not  seen ;  and  as  is  their  knowledge,  so  is  their 
love :  it  is  deep,  from  their  nature ;  rich  and  intimate, 
from  the  variety  of  their  experience;  chastened  by 
the  ever-present  sense  of  their  weakness  and  of  its 
consequences. 

*Jobn  Henry  Newman's  "Call  of  David." 


310  THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

In  extreme  opposition  to  this  is  the  ascetic  species 
of  goodness.  This  is  not,  as  is  sometimes  believed,  a 
self -produced  ideal, — a  simply  voluntary  result  of  dis- 
cipline and  restraint.  Some  men  have  by  nature 
what  others  have  to  elaborate  by  effort.  Some  men 
have  a  repulsion  from  the  world.  All  of  us  have,  in 
some  degree,  a  protective  instinct;  an  impulse,  that 
is  to  say,  to  start  back  from  what  may  trouble  us, 
to  shun  what  may  fascinate  us,  to  avoid  what  may 
tempt  us.  On  the  moral  side  of  human  nature  this 
preventive  check  is  occasionally  imperious :  it  holds 
the  whole  man  under  its  control, — makes  him  recoil 
from  the  world,  be  offended  at  its  amusements,  be 
repelled  by  its  occupations,  be  scared  by  its  sins.  The 
consequences  of  this  tendency,  when  it  is  thus  in 
excess,  upon  the  character  are  very  great  and  very 
singular.  It  secludes  a  man  in  a  sort  of  natural  mon- 
astery; he  lives  in  a  kind  of  moral  solitude :  and  the 
effects  of  his  isolation,  for  good  and  for  evil,  on  his 
disposition  are  very  many.  The  best  result  is  a  sin- 
gular capacity  for  meditative  Teligion.  Being  aloof 
from  what  is  earthly,  such  persons  are  shut  up  with 
what  is  spiritual;  being  unstirred  by  the  incidents  of 
time,  they  are  alone  with  the  eternal;  rejecting  this 
life,  they  are  alone  with  what  is  beyond.  According 
to  the  measure  of  their  minds,  men  of  this  removed 
and  secluded  excellence  become  eminent  for  a  settled 
and  brooding  piety,  for  a  strong  and  predominant 
religion.  In  human  life,  too,  in  a  thousand  ways, 
their  isolated  excellence  is  apparent.  They  walk 
through  the  whole  of  it  with  an  abstinence  from 
sense,  a  zeal  of  morality,  a  purity  of  ideal,  which 
other  men  have  not;  their  religion  has  an  imagina- 
tive grandeur,  and  their  life  something  of  an  unusual 
impeccability:  and  these  are  obviously  singular  excel- 
lences. But  the  deficiencies  to  which  the  same  char- 
acter tends  are  equally  singular.  In  the  first  place, 
their  isolation  gives  them  a  certain  pride  in  them- 
selves and  an  inevitable  ignorance  of  others.  They 


JOHX  MILTOX.  311 


are  secluded  by  their  constitutional  &ai\jM>v  from  life ; 
they  are  repelled  from  the  pursuits  which  others  care 
for;  they  are  alarmed  at  the  amusements  which 
others  enjoy.  In  consequence,  they  trust  in  their  own 
thoughts ;  they  come  to  magnify  both  them  and  them- 
selves,—  for  being  able  to  think  and  to  retain  them. 
The  greater  the  nature  of  the  man,  the  greater  is  this 
temptation.  His  thoughts  are  greater,  and  in  conse- 
quence the  greater  is  his  tendency  to  prize  them,  the 
more  extreme  is  his  tendency  to  overrate  them.  This 
pride,  too,  goes  side  by  side  with  a  want  of  sympa- 
thy. Being  aloof  from  others,  such  a  mind  is  unlike 
others ;  and  it  feels,  and  sometimes  it  feels  bitterly, 
its  own  unlikeness.  .Generally,  however,  it  is  too 
wrapped  up  in  its  own  exalted  thoughts  to  be  sensible 
of  the  pain  of  moral  isolation;  it  stands  apart  from 
others,  unknowing  and  unknown.  It  is  deprived  of 
moral  experience  in  two  ways, —  it  is  not  tempted 
itself,  and  it  does  not  comprehend  the  temptations  of 
others.  And  this  defect  of  moral  experience  is  almost 
certain  to  produce  two  effects,  one  practical  and  the 
other  speculative.  When  such  a  man  is  wrong,  he 
will  be  apt  to  believe  that  he  is  right.  If  his  own 
judgment  err,  he  will  not  have  the  habit  of  check- 
ing it  by  the  judgment  of  others :  he  will  be  accus- 
tomed to  think  most  men  wrong ;  differing  from  them 
would  be  no  proof  of  error,  agreeing  with  them  would 
rather  be  a  basis  for  suspicion.  He  may,  too,  be  very 
wrong,  for  the  conscience  of  no  man  is  perfect  on  all 
sides.  The  strangeness  of  secluded  excellence  will 
be  sometimes  deeply  shaded  by  very  strange  errors. 
To  be  commonly  above  others,  still  more  to  think 
yourself  above  others,  is  to  be  below  them  every  now 
and  then,  and  sometimes  much  below.  Again,  on  the 
speculative  side,  this  defect  of  moral  experience  pen- 
etrates into  the  distinguishing  excellence  of  the  char- 
acter,—its  brooding  and  meditative  religion.  Those 
who  see  life  under  only  one  aspect  can  see  religion 
under  only  one  likewise.  This  world  is  needful  to 


312        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

interpret  what  is  beyond;  the  seen  must  explain  the 
unseen.  It  is  from  a  tried  and  a  varied  and  a 
troubled  moral  life  that  the  deepest  and  truest  idea 
of  God  arises.  The  ascetic  character  wants  these : 
therefore  in  its  religion  there  will  be  a  harshness  of 
outline,  —  a  bareness,  so  to  say,  —  as  well  as  a  grand- 
eur. In  life  we  may  look  for  a  singular  purity;  but 
also,  and  with  equal  probability,  for  singular  self-con- 
fidence, a  certain  unsympathizing  straitness,  and  per- 
haps a  few  singular  errors. 

The  character  of  the  ascetic  or  austere  species  of 
goodness  is  almost  exactly  embodied  in  Milton.  Men, 
indeed,  are  formed  on  no  ideal  type :  human  nature 
has  tendencies  too  various,  and  circumstances  too 
complex ;  all  men's  characters  have  sides  and  aspects 
not  to  be  comprehended  in  a  single  definition :  but  in 
this  case,  the  extent  to  which  the  character  of  the 
man  as  we  find  it  delineated  approaches  to  the  moral 
abstraction  which  we  sketch  from  theory  is  remark- 
able. The  whole  being  of  Milton  may,  in  some  sort, 
be  summed  up  in  the  great  commandment  of  the 
austere  character,  "Reverence  thyself"  We  find  it 
expressed  in  almost  every  one  of  his  singular  descrip- 
tions of  himself,  —  of  those  striking  passages  which 
are  scattered  through  all  his  works,  and  which  add  to 
whatever  interest  may  intrinsically  belong  to  them  one 
of  the  rarest  of  artistic  charms,  that  of  magnanimous 
autobiography.  They  have  been  quoted  a  thousand 
times,  but  one  of  them  may  perhaps  be  quoted  again  : 

"I  had  my  time,  readers  as  others  have  who  have  good  learning 
bestowed  upon  them,  to  be  sent  to  those  places  where,  the  opinion 
was,  it  might  be  soonest  attained ;  and  as  the  manner  is,  was  not  un- 
studied in  those  authors  which  are  most  commended :  whereof  some 
were  grave  orators  and  historians,  whose  matter  methought  I  loved 
indeed,  but  as  my  age  then  was,  so  I  understood  them ;  others  were 
the  smooth  elegiac  poets,  whereof  the  schools  are  not  scarce,  whom 
both  for  the  pleasing  sound  of  their  numerous  writing,  which  in 
imitation  I  found  most  easy  and  most  agreeable  to  nature's  part  in 
me,  and  for  their  matter,  which  what  it  is  there  be  few  who  know 
not,  I  was  so  allured  to  read,  that  no  recreation  came  to  me  better 


JOHN  MILTON.  313 


welcome.  For  that  it  was  then  those  years  with  me  which  are 
excused,  though  they  be  least  severe,  I  may  be  saved  the  labor  to 
remember  ye.  Whence  having  observed  them  to  account  it  the 
chief  glory  of  their  wit,  in  that  they  were  ablest  to  judge,  to 
praise,  and  by  that  could  esteem  themselves  worthiest  to  love,  those 
high  perfections  which  under  one  or  other  name  they  took  to  cel- 
ebrate, I  thought  with  myself  by  every  instinct  and  presage  of 
nature,  which  is  not  wont  to  be  false,  that  what  emboldened  them 
to  this  task  might  with  such  diligence  as  they  used  embolden  me ; 
and  that  what  judgment,  wit,  or  elegance  was  my  share  would 
herein  best  appear,  and  best  value  itself,  by  how  much  more  wisely 
and  with  more  love  of  virtue  I  should  choose  (let  rude  ears  be 
absent)  the  object  of  not  unlike  praises.  For  albeit  these  thoughts 
to  some  will  seem  virtuous  and  commendable,  to  others  only  par- 
donable, to  a  third  sort  perhaps  idle,  yet  the  mentioning  of  them 
now  will  end  in  serious. 

"Nor  blame  it,  readers,  in  those  years  to  propose  to  themselves 
such  a  reward,  as  the  noblest  dispositions  above  other  things  in 
this  life  have  sometimes  preferred ;  whereof  not  to  be  sensible  when 
good  and  fair  in  one  person  meet,  argues  both  a  gross  and  shallow 
judgment,  and  withal  an  ungentle  and  swainish  breast.  For  by  the 
firm  settling  of  these  persuasions,  I  became,  to  my  best  memory,  so 
much  a  proficient,  that  if  I  found  those  authors  anywhere  speaking 
unworthy  things  of  themselves,  or  unchaste  of  those  names  which 
before  they  had  extolled,  this  effect  it  wrought  with  me, — from  that 
time  forward  their  art  I  still  applauded,  but  the  men  I  deplored ; 
and  above  them  all,  preferred  the  two  famous  renowners  of  Beatrice 
and  Laura,  who  never  write  but  honor  of  them  to  whom  they  devote 
their  verse,  displaying  sublime  and  pure  thoughts  without  trans- 
gression. And  long  it  was  not  after,  when  I  was  confirmed  in  this 
opinion,  —  that  he  who  would  not  be  frustrate  of  his  hope  to  write 
well  hereafter  in  laudable  things  ought  himself  to  be  a  true  poom ; 
that  is,  a  composition  and  pattern  of  the  best  and  honorablcst  tilings: 
not  presuming  to  sing  high  praises  of  heroic  men  or  famous  cities, 
unless  he  have  in  himself  the  experience  and  the  practice  of  all 
that  which  is  praiseworthy."* 

It  may  be  fanciful  to  add,  and  we  may  be  laughed 
at,  but  we  believe  that  the  self-reverencing  propensity 
was  a  little  aided  by  his  singular  personal  beauty. 
All  the  desoribers  of  his  youth  concur  in  telling  us 

*"  Apology  for  Smectvmmius." 


314        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT, 

that  this  was  very  remarkable.     Mr.  Masson  has  the 
following  account  of  it :  — 

"When  Milton  left  Cambridge  in  July,  1632,  he  was  twenty- 
three  years  and  eight  months  old.  In  stature,  therefore,  at  least, 
he  was  already  whatever  he  was  to  be.  'In  stature,'  he  says  him- 
self at  a  later  period,  when  driven  to  speak  on  the  subject,  '  I  con- 
fess I  am  not  tall,  but  still  of  what  is  nearer  to  middle  height 
than  to  little ;  and  what  if  I  were  of  little,  of  which  stature  have 
often  been  very  great  men  both  in  peace  and  war  —  though  why 
should  that  be  called  little  which  is  great  enough  for  virtue?' 
('  Statura,  fateor  non  sum  procera,  sed  qua3  mediocri  tamen  quam 
parvse  propior  sit ;  sed  quid  si  parva,  qua  et  summi  ssepe  turn  pace 
turn  bello  viri  fuere — quanquam  parva  cur  dicitur,  qua3  ad  virtutem 
satis  magna  est  ? ')  This  is  precise  enough  ;  but  we  have  Aubrey's 
words  to  the  same  effect.  'He  was  scarce  so  tall  as  I  am,'  says 
Aubrey ;  to  which,  to  make  it  more  intelligible,  he  appends  this 
marginal  note,  — '  Qu.  Quot  feet  I  am  high  ?  Resp.  Of  middle  stat- 
ure ' :  i.  e. ,  Milton  was  a  little  under  middle  height.  '  He  had 
light-brown  hair,'  continues  Aubrey,  —  putting  the  word  'abrown' 
(auburn)  in  the  margin  by  way  of  synonym  for  'light  brown';  — 
'his  complexion  exceeding  fair;  oval  face;  his  eye  a  dark  gray.'" 

We  are  far  from  accusing  Milton  of  personal  van- 
ity :  his  character  was  too  enormous,  if  we  may  be 
allowed  so  to  say,  for  a  fault  so  petty.  But  a  little 
tinge  of  excessive  self-respect  will  cling  to  those  who 
can  admire  themselves.  Ugly  men  are  and  ought  to 
be  ashamed  of  their  existence;  Milton  was  not  so. 

The  peculiarities  of  the  austere  type  of  character 
stand  out  in  Milton  more  remarkably  than  in  other 
men  who  partake  of  it,  because  of  the  extreme 
strength  of  his  nature.  In  reading  him  this  is  the 
first  thing  that  strikes  us.  We  seem  to  have  left  the 
little  world  of  ordinary  writers.  The  words  of  some 
authors  are  said  to  have  "hands  and  feet";  they 
seem,  that  is,  to  have  a  vigor  and  animation  which 
only  belong  to  things  which  live  and  move.  Milton's 
words  have  not  this  animal  life,  —  there  is  no  rude 
energy  about  them ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  they 
have  or  seem  to  have  a  soul,  a  spirit  which  other 
words  have  not.  He  was  early  aware  that  what  he 


JOHN  MILTON.  315 


wrote,  "by  certain  vital  signs  it  had,"  was  such  as 
the  world  would  not  ''willingly  let  die."*  After  two 
centuries  we  feel  the  same.  There  is  a  solemn  and 
firm  music  in  the  lines ;  a  brooding  sublimity  haunts 
them ;  the  spirit  of  the  great  writer  moves  over  the 
face  of  the  page.  In  life  there  seems  to  have  been 
the  same  peculiar  strength  that  his  works  suggest  to 
us.  His  moral  tenacity  is  amazing  :  he  took  his  own 
course,  and  he  kept  his  own  course ;  and  we  may 
trace  in  his  defects  the  same  characteristics.  "Energy 
and  ill  temper,"  some  say,  "are  the  same  thing;" 
and  though  this  is  a  strong  exaggeration,  yet  there 
is  a  basis  of  truth  in  it.  People  who  labor  much  will 
be  cross  if  they  do  not  obtain  that  for  which  they 
labor ;  those  who  desire  vehemently  will  be  vexed  if 
they  do  not  obtain*  that  which  they  desire.  As  is  the 
strength  of  the  impelling  tendency,  so,  other  things 
being  equal,  is  the  pain  which  it  will  experience  if  it 
be  baffled.  Those,  too,  who  are  set  on  what  is  high 
will  be  proportionately  offended  by  the  intrusion  of 
what  is  low.  Accordingly,  Milton  is  described  by 
those  who  knew  him  as  "a  harsh  and  choleric  man." 
"He  had,"  we  are  told,  "a  gravity  in  his  temper, 
not  melancholy,  or  not  till  the  latter  part  of  his  life, 
not  sour,  not  morose  or  ill-natured,  but  a  certain 
severity  of  mind  ;  a  mind  not  condescending  to  little 
things  : "  f  and  this  although  his  daughter  remembered 
that  he  was  delightful  company,  the  life  of  conversa- 
tion, and  that  he  was  so  "on  account  of  a  flow  of 
subject,  and  an  unaffected  cheerfulness  and  civility." 
Doubtless  this  may  have  been  so  when  he  was  at 
ease,  and  at  home  ;  but  there  are  unmistakable  traces 
of  the  harsher  tendency  in  almost  all  his  works. 

Some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  ascetic  character 
were  likewise  augmented  by  his  studious  disposition. 
This  began  very  early  in  life,  and  continued  till  the 
end.  "My  father,"  he  says,  "destined  me  ...  to  the 
study  of  polite  literature,  which  I  embraced  with  such 

*  "  Reason  of  Church  Government,"  introduction  to  Book  iii. 
t  Philips. 


316  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

avidity,  that  from  the  twelfth  year  of  my  age  I  hardly 
ever  retired  to  rest  from  my  studies  till  midnight; 
which  was  the  first  source  of  injury  to  my  eyes,  to 
the  natural  weakness  of  which  were  added  frequent 
headaches :  all  of  which  not  retarding  my  eagerness 
after  knowledge,  he  took  care  to  have  me  instructed— 
etc.*  Every  page  of  his  works  shows  the  result  of 
this  education.  In  spite  of  the  occupations  of  man- 
hood, and  the  blindness  and  melancholy  of  old  age, 
he  still  continued  to  have  his  principal  pleasure  in 
that  "studious  and  select"  reading,  which,  though 
often  curiously  transmuted,  is  perpetually  involved  in 
the  very  texture  of  his  works.  We  need  not  stay  to 
observe  how  a  habit  in  itself  so  austere  conduces  to 
the  development  of  an  austere  character.  Deep  study, 
especially  deep  study  which  haunts  and  rules  the  im- 
agination, necessarily  removes  men  from  life,  absorbs 
them  in  themselves ;  purifies  their  conduct,  "with  some 
risk  of  isolating  their  sympathies ;  develops  that  lofti- 
ness of  mood  which  is  gifted  with  deep  inspirations 
and  indulged  with  great  ideas,  but  which  tends  in  its 
excess  to  engender  a  contempt  for  others,  and  a  self- 
appreciation  which  is  even  more  displeasing  to  them. 
These  same  tendencies  were  aggravated  also  by 
two  defects  which  are  exceedingly  rare  in  great  Eng- 
lish authors,  and  which  perhaps  Milton  alone  amongst 
those  of  the  highest  class  is  in  a  remarkable  degree 
chargeable  with;  we  mean  a  deficiency  in  humor, 
and  a  deficiency  in  a  knowledge  of  plain  human  na- 
ture. Probably  when,  after  the  lapse  of  ages,  English 
literature  is  looked  at  in  its  larger  features  only,  and 
in  comparison  with  other  literatures  which  have  pre- 
ceded or  which  may  follow  it,  the  critics  will  lay 
down  that  its  most  striking  characteristic  as  a  whole 
is  its  involution,  so  to  say,  in  life ;  the  degree  to  which 
its  book  life  resembles  real  life ;  the  extent  to  which 
the  motives,  dispositions,  and  actions  of  common  busy 
persons  are  represented  in  a  medium  which  would 

*  Translated  by  Keightley,  from  "Defeiisio  Secuiida." 


JOHN  MILTON.  317 


seem  likely  to  give  us  peculiarly  the  ideas  of  secluded 
and  the  tendencies  of  meditative  men.  It  is  but  an 
aspect  of  this  fact,  that  English  literature  abounds — 
some  critics  will  say  abounds  excessively  —  with  hu- 
mor. This  is  in  some  sense  the  imaginative  element 
of  ordinary  life, —  the  relieving  charm,  partaking  at 
once  of  contrast  and  similitude,  which  gives  a  human 
and  an  intellectual  interest  to  the  world  of  clowns 
and  cottages,  of  fields  and  farmers.  The  degree  to 
which  Milton  is  deficient  in  this  element  is  conspicu- 
ous in  every  page  of  his  writings  where  its  occur- 
rence could  be  looked  for;  and  if  we  do  not  always 
look  for  it,  this  is  because  the  subjects  of  his  most 
remarkable  works  are  on  a  removed  elevation,  where 
ordinary  life,  the  world  of  "cakes  and  ale,"  is  never 
thought  of  and  never  expected.  It  is  in  his  dramas, 
as  we  should  expect,  that  Milton  shows  this  deficiency 
the  most.  "Citizens"  never  talk  in  his  pages,  as  they 
do  in  Shakespeare.  We  feel  instinctively  that  Milton's 
eye  had  never  rested  with  the  same  easy  pleasure  on 
the  easy,  ordinary,  shopkeeping  world.  Perhaps,  such 
is  the  complication  of  art,  it  is  on  the  most  tragic 
occasions  that  we  feel  this  want  the  most.  It  may 
seem  an  odd  theory,  and  yet  we  believe  it  to  be  a 
true  principle,  that  catastrophes  require  a  comic  ele- 
ment. We  appear  to  feel  the  same  principle  in  life. 
We  may  read  solemn  descriptions  of  great  events 
in  history, — say  of  Lord  Strafford's  trial,  and  of  his 
marvelous  speech,  and  his  appeal  to  his  "saint  in 
heaven";  but  we  comprehend  the  whole  transaction 
much  better  when  we  learn  from  Mr.  Baillie,  the  eye- 
witness, that  people  ate  nuts  and  apples,  and  talked, 
and  laughed,  and  betted  on  the  great  question  of  acquit- 
tal and  condemnation.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  under- 
stand why  this  should  be  so.  It  seems  to  be  a  law  of 
the  imagination,  at  least  in  most  men,  that  it  will 
not  bear  concentration.  It  is  essentially  a  glancing 
faculty.  It  goes  and  comes,  and  comes  and  goes, 
and  we  hardly  know  whence  or  why.  But  we  most  of 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEIIOT. 


us  know  that  when  we  try  to  fix  it,  in  a  moment  it 
passes  away.  Accordingly,  the  proper  procedure  of 
art  is  to  let  it  go  in  such  a  manner  as  to  insure  its 
coming  back  again.  The  force  of  artistic  contrasts 
effects  exactly  this  result :  skillfully  disposed  opposites 
suggest  the  notion  of  each  other.  Y/e  realize  more 
perfectly  and  easily  the  great  idea,  the  tragic  concep- 
tion, when  we  are  familiarized  with  its  effects  on  the 
minds  of-  little  people,  with  the  petty  consequences 
which  it  causes  as  well  as  with  the  enormous  forces 
from  which  it  comes.  The  catastrophe  of  "Samson 
Agonistes"  discloses  Milton's  imperfect  mastery  of 
this  element  of  effect.  If  ever  there  was  an  occasion 
which  admitted  its  perfect  employment,  it  was  this. 
The  kind  of  catastrophe  is  exactly  that  which  is  sure 
to  strike,  and  strike  forcibly,  the  minds  of  common 
persons.  If  their  observations  on  the  occasion  were 
really  given  to  us,  we  could  scarcely  avoid  something 
rather  comic.  The  eccentricity,  so  to  speak,  of  ordi- 
nary persons  shows  itself  peculiarly  at  such  times, 
and  they  say  the  queerest  things.  Shakespeare  has 
exemplified  this  principle  most  skillfully  on  various 
occasions :  it  is  the  sort  of  art  which  is  just  in  his 
way.  His  imagination  always  seems  to  be  floating 
between  the  contrasts  of  things;  and  if  his  mind  had 
a  resting-place  that  it  liked,  it  was  this  ordinary  view 
of  extraordinary  events.  Milton  was  under  the  great- 
[est]  obligation  to  use  this  relieving  principle  of  art 
in  the  catastrophe  of  "Samson,"  because  he  has  made 
every  effort  to  heighten  the  strictly  tragic  element, 
which  requires  that  relief.  His  art,  always  serious, 
was  never  more  serious.  His  Samson  is  not  the  incar- 
nation of  physical  strength  which  the  popular  fancy 
embodies  in  the  character ;  nor  is  it  the  simple  and 
romantic  character  of  the  Old  Testament.  On  the 
contrary,  Samson  has  become  a  Puritan :  the  observa- 
tions he  makes  would  have  done  much  credit  to  a 
religious  pikeman  in  Cromwell's  army.  In  conse- 
quence, his  death  requires  some  lightening  touches  to 


JOHN  1IILTOX.  31<) 


make  it  a  properly  artistic  event.     The  pomp  of  seri- 
ousness becomes  too  oppressive. 

"At  length  for  intermissicm  sake  they  led  him 
Between  the  pillars ;  he  his  guide  requested 
(For  so  from  such  as  nearer  stood  we  heard), 
As  over-tired,  to  let  him  lean  awhile 
With  both  his  arms  on  those  two  massy  pillars 
That  to  the  arched  roof  gave  main  support. 
He  unsuspicious  led  him ;  which  when  Samson 
Felt  in  his  arms,  with  head  awhile  inclined, 
And  eyes  fast  fixed,  he  stood,  as  one  who  prayed, 
Or  some,  great  matter  in  his  mind  revolved ; 
At  last  with  head  erect  thus  cried  aloud : 
'  Hitherto,  lords,  what  your  commands  imposed 
I  have  performed,  as  reason  was,  obeying, 
Not  without  wonder  or  delight  behold ; 
Now  of  my  own  accord  such  other  trial 
I  mean  to  show  you  of  my  strength,  yet  greater, 
As  with  amaze  shall  strike  all  who  behold.' 
This  uttered,  straining  all  his  nerves  he  bowed, 
As  with  the  force  of  winds  and  waters  pent 
"When  mountains  tremble,  those  two  massy  pillars 
With  horrible  convulsion  to  and  fro. 
He  tugged,  lie  shook,  till  down  they  came,  and  drew 
The  whole  roof  after  them,  with  burst  of  thunder, 
Upon  the  heads  of  all  who  sat  beneath, — 
Lords,  ladies,  captains,  counselors,  or  priests, 
Their  choice  nobility  and  flower,  not  only 
Of  this,  but  each  Philistian  city  round,       ^ 
Met  from  all  parts  to  solemnize  this  feast. 
Samson  with  these  unmixed,  inevitably 
Pulled  down  the  same  destruction  on  himself; 
The  vulgar  only  'scaped  who  stood  without, 

Choi:     O  dearly  bought  revenge,  yet  glorious! 

Living  or  dying  thou  hast  fulfilled 

The  work  for  which  thou  wast  foretold 
To  Israel,  and  now  liest  victorious 

Among  thy  slain  self-killed, 

Not  willingly,  but  tangled  in  the  fold 
Of  dire  necessity,  whoso  law  in  death  conjoined 
Thee  with  thy  slaughtered  foes,  in  number  more 
Than  all  thy  life  had  slain  before." 


320  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

This  is  grave  and  fine;  but  Shakespeare  would  have 
done  it  differently  and  better. 

We  need  not  pause  to  observe  how  certainly  this 
deficiency  in  humor  and  in'  the  delineation  of  ordinary 
human  feeling  is  connected  with  a  recluse,  a  solitary, 
and  to  some  extent  an  unsympathizing  life.  If  we 
combine  a  certain  natural  aloofness  from  common 
men  with  literary  habits  and  an  incessantly  studious 
musing,  we  shall  at  once  see  how  powerful  a  force  is 
brought  to  bear  on  an  instinctively  austere  character, 
and  how  sure  it  will  be  to  develop  the  peculiar  tenden- 
cies of  it,  both  good  and  evil.  It  was  to  no  purpose 
that  Milton  seems  to  have  practiced  a  sort  of  profes- 
sional study  of  life.  No  man  could  rank  more  highly 
the  importance  to  a  poet  of  an  intellectual  insight 
into  all-important  pursuits  and  "seemly  arts."  But 
it  is  not  by  the  mere  intellect  that  we  can  take  in  the 
daily  occupations  of  mankind :  we  must  sympathize 
with  them,  and  see  them  in  their  human  relations. 
A  chimney-sweeper,  qud  chimney-sweeper,  is  not  very 
sentimental :  it  is  in  himself  that  he  is  so  interesting. 

Milton's  austere  character  is  in  some  sort  the  more 
evident  because  he  possessed  in  large  measure  a  cer- 
tain relieving  element,  in  which  those  who  are  emi- 
nent in  that  character  are  very  deficient.  Generally 
such  persons  have  but  obtuse  senses :  we  are  prone  to 
attribute  the  purity  of  their  conduct  to  the  dullness  of 
their  sensations.  Milton  had  110  such  obtuseness :  he 
had  every  opportunity  for  knowing  the  "world  of  eye 
and  ear  "  * ;  you  cannot  open  his  works  without  seeing 
how  much  he  did  know  of  it.  The  austerity  of  his 
nature  was  not  caused  by  the  deficiency  of  his  senses, 
but  by  an  excess  of  the  warning  instinct.  Even  when 
he  professed  to  delineate  the  world  of  sensuous  de- 
light, this  instinct  shows  itself.  Dr.  Johnson  thought 
he  could  discern  melancholy  in  "  L'Allegro " :  f  if  he 
had  said  "  solitariness,"  it  would  have  been  correct. 

The  peculiar  nature  of  Milton's  character  is  very 
conspicuous  in  the  events  of  his  domestic  life,  and  in 


*  Wordsworth,  "Tintern  Abbey."  f'Life  of  Milton." 


JOHN  MILTON.  321 


the  views  which  he  took  of  the  great  public  revolu- 
tions of  his  age.  We  can  spare  only  a  very  brief 
space  for  the  examination  of  either  of  these;  but  we 
will  endeavor  to  say  a  few  words  upon  each  of  them. 
The  circumstances  of  Milton's  first  marriage  are 
as  singular  as  any  in  the  strange  series  of  the  loves 
of  the  poets.  The  scene  opens  with  an  affair  of  busi- 
ness. Milton's  father,  as  is  well  known,  was  a  scrive- 
ner,—  a  kind  of  professional  money-lender,  then  well 
known  in  London;  and  having  been  early  connected 
with  the  vicinity  of  Oxford,  continued  afterwards  to 
have  pecuniary  transactions  of  a  certain  nature  with 
country  gentlemen  of  that  neighborhood.  In  the 
course  of  these  he  advanced  £500  to  a  certain  Mr. 
Richard  Powell,  a  squire  of  fair  landed  estate,  resid- 
ing at  Forest  Hill,  which  is  about  four  miles  from 
the  city  of  Oxford.  The  money  was  lent  on  the  llth 
of  June,  1627 ;  and  a  few  months  afterwards  Mr.  Mil- 
ton the  elder  gave  £312  of  it  to  his  son  the  poet,  who 
was  then  a  youth  at  college,  and  made  a  formal  mem- 
orandum of  the  same  in  the  form  then  usual,  which 
still  exists.  The  debt  was  never  wholly  discharged; 
"for  in  1G50-1  we  find  Milton  asserting  on  oath  that  he 
had  received  only  about  £180,  'in  part  of  satisfaction 
of  my  said  just  and  principal  debt,  with  damages  for 
the  same,  and  my  costs  of  suit.'"  Mr.  Keightley  sup- 
poses him  to  have  taken  "many  a  ride  over  to  Forest 
Hill"  after  he  left  Cambridge  and  was  living  at  Hor- 
ton,  which  is  not  very  far  distant ;  but  of  course  this 
is  only  conjecture.  We  only  know  that  about  1643 
"he  took,"  as  his  nephew  relates,  "a  journey  into  the 
country,  nobody  about  him  certainly  knowing  the  rea- 
son, or  that  it  was  any  more  than  a  journey  of  re- 
creation. After  a  month's  stay,  home  he  returns  a 
married  man,  that  went  out  a  bachelor ;  his  wife  being 
Mary,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Mr.  Richard  Powell,  then 
a  justice  of  the  peace''  for  the  county  of  Oxford. 
The  suddenness  of  the  event  is  rather  striking;  but 
Philips  was  at  the  time  one  of  Milton's  pupils,  and  it 
VOL.  I.— 21 


322        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

is  possible  that  some  pains  may  have  been  taken  to 
conceal  the  love  affair  from  the  "young  gentlemen." 
Still,  as  Philips  was  Milton's  nephew,  he  was  likely 
to  hear  such  intelligence  tolerably  early;  and  as  he 
does  not  seem  to  have  done  so,  the  denouement  was 
probably  rather  prompt.  At  any  rate,  he  was  cer- 
tainly married  at  that  time,  and  took  his  bride  home 
to  his  house  in  Aldersgate  Street ;  and  there  was 
feasting  and  gayety  according  to  the  usual  custom  of 
such  events.  A  few  weeks  after,  the  lady  went  home 
to  her  friends,  in  which  there  was  of  course  nothing 
remarkable ;  but  it  is  singular  that  when  the  natural 
limit  of  her  visit  at  home  was  come,  she  absolutely 
refused  to  return  to  her  husband.  The  grounds  of  so 
strange  a  resolution  are  very  difficult  to  ascertain. 
Political  feeling  ran  very  high;  old  Mr.  Powell  ad- 
hered to  the  side  of  the  king,  and  Milton  to  that  of 
the  Parliament :  and  this  might  be  fancied  to  have 
caused  an  estrangement.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
these  circumstances  must  have  been  well  known  three 
months  before.  Nothing  had  happened  in  that  quarter 
of  a  year  to  change  very  materially  the  position  of 
the  two  parties  in  the  state.  Some  other  cause  for 
Mrs.  Milton's  conduct  must  be  looked  for.  She  her- 
self is  said  to  have  stated  that  she  did  not  like  her 
husband's  "spare  diet  and  hard  study."*  No  doubt, 
too,  she  found  it  dull  in  London  :  she  had  probably 
always  lived  in  the  country,  and  must  have  been 
quite  unaccustomed  to  the  not  very  pleasant  scene  in 
which  she  found  herself.  Still,  many  young  ladies 
have  married  schoolmasters,  and  many  young  ladies 
have  gone  from  Oxfordshire  to  London ;  and  never- 
theless, no  such  dissolution  of  matrimonial  harmony 
is  known  to  have  occurred. 

The  fact  we  believe  to  be,  that  the  bride  took  a 
dislike  to  her  husband.  We  cannot  but  have  a  sus- 
picion that  she  did  not  like  him  before  marriage,  and 
that  pecuniary  reasons  had  their  influence.  If,  how- 
ever, Mr.  Powell  exerted  his  paternal  influence,  it  may 

«  Philips. 


JOHN   MILTON.  323 


be  admitted  that  he  had  unusual  considerations  to 
advance  in  favor  of  the  alliance  he  proposed.  It  is 
not  every  father  whose  creditors  are  handsome  young 
gentlemen  with  fair  incomes.  Perhaps  it  seemed  no 
extreme  tyranny  to  press  the  young  lady  a  little  to 
do  that  which  some  others  might  have  done  without 
pressing.  Still,  all  this  is  hut  hypothesis :  our  evi- 
dence as  to  the  love  affairs  of  the  time  of  King 
Charles  I.  is  but  meager.  But  whatever  the  feelings 
of  Miss  Powell  may  have  been,  those  of  Mrs.  Milton 
are  exceedingly  certain.  She  would  not  return  to  her 
husband ;  she  did  not  answer  his  letters ;  and  a  mes- 
senger whom  he  sent  to  bring  her  back  was  handled 
rather  roughly.  Unquestionably  she  was  deeply  to 
blame,  by  far  the  most  to  blame  of  the  two.  What- 
ever may  be  alleged  against  him  is  as  nothing  com- 
pared with  her  offense  in  leaving  him.  To  defend  so 
startling  a  course,  we  must  adopt  views  of  divorce 
even  more  extreme  than  those  which  Milton  was  him- 
self driven  to  inculcate ;  and  whatever  Mrs.  Milton's 
practice  may  have  been,  it  may  be  fairly  conjectured 
that  her  principles  were  strictly  orthodox.  Yet  if  she 
could  be  examined  by  a  commission  to  the  ghosts, 
she  would  probably  have  some  palliating  circumstances 
to  allege  in  mitigation  of  judgment.  There  were  per- 
haps peculiarities  in  Milton's  character  which  a  young 
lady  might  not  improperly  dislike.  The  austere  and 
ascetic  character  is  of  course  far  less  agreeable  to 
women  than  the  sensuous  and  susceptible.  The  self- 
occupation,  the  pride,  the  abstraction  of  the  former 
are  to  the  female  mind  disagreeable ;  studious  habits 
and  unusual  self-denial  seem  to  it  purposeless ;  lofty 
enthusiasm,  public  spirit,  the  solitary  pursuit  of  an 
elevated  ideal,  are  quite  out  of  its  way :  they  rest  too 
little  on  the  visible  world  to  be  intelligible,  they  arc 
too  little  suggested  by  the  daily  occurrences  of  life  to 
seem  possible.  The  poet  in  search  of  an  imaginary 
phantom  has  never  been  successful  with  women,— 
there  are  innumerable  proofs  of  that ;  and  the  ascetic 


324  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

moralist  is  even  less  interesting.  A  character  com- 
bined out  of  the  two  —  and  this  to  some  extent  was 
Milton's  —  is  singularly  likely  to  meet  with  painful 
failure;  with  a  failure  the  more  painful,  that  it  could 
never  anticipate  or  explain  it.  Possibly  he  was  ab- 
sorbed in  an  austere  self-conscious  excellence :  it  may 
never  have  occurred  to  him  that  a  lady  might  prefer 
the  trivial  detail  of  daily  happiness. 

Milton's  own  view  of  the  matter  he  has  explained 
to  us  in  his  book  on  divorce ;  and  it  is  a  very  odd 
one.  His  complaint  was  that  his  wife  would  not 
talk.  What  he  wished  in  marriage  was  "an  intimate 
and  speaking  help":  he  encountered  "a  mute  and 
spiritless  mate."  One  of  his  principal  incitements  to 
the  "pious  necessity  of  divorcing"  was  an  unus- 
ual deficiency  in  household  conversation.  A  certain 
loquacity  in  their  wives  has  been  the  complaint  of 
various  eminent  men ;  but  his  domestic  affliction 
was  a  different  one.  The  "ready  and  reviving  asso- 
ciate," whom  he  had  hoped  to  find,  appeared  to  be  a 
"  coinhabiting  mischief,"  who  was  sullen,  and  perhaps 
seemed  bored  and  tired.  And  at  times  he  is  disposed 
to  cast  the  blame  of  his  misfortune  on  the  unin- 
structive  nature  of  youthful  virtue.  The  "soberest 
and  best  governed  men,"  he  says,  "are  least  practiced 
in  these  affairs,"  are  not  very  well  aware  that  "the 
bashful  muteness"  of  a  young  lady  "may  ofttimes 
hide  all  the  unliveliness  and  natural  sloth  which  is 
really  unfit  for  conversation,"  and  are  rather  in  too 
great  haste  to  "light  the  nuptial  torch":  whereas 
those  "who  have  lived  most  loosely,  by  reason  of 
their  bold  accustoming,  prove  most  successful  in  their 
matches ;  because  their  wild  affections,  unsettling  at 
will,  have  been  as  so  many  divorces  to  teach  them 
experience."  And  he  rather  wishes  to  infer  that  the 
virtuous  man  should,  in  case  of  mischance,  have  his 
resource  of  divorce  likewise. 

In  truth,  Milton's  book  on  divorce  —  though  only 
containing  principles  which  he  continued  to  believe 


JOHN  MILTON.  325 


long  after  he  had  any  personal  reasons  for  wishing 
to  do  so  —  was  clearly  suggested  at  first  by  the  un- 
usual phenomena  of  his  first  marriage.  His  wife  be- 
gan by  not  speaking  to  him,  and  finished  by  running 
away  from  him.  Accordingly,  like  most  books  which 
spring  out  of  personal  circumstances,  his  treatises  on 
this  subject  have  a  frankness  and  a  mastery  of  de- 
tail which  others  on  the  same  topic  sometimes  want. 
He  is  remarkably  free  from  one  peculiarity  of  modern 
writers  on  such  matters.  Several  considerate  gentle- 
men are  extremely  anxious  for  the  ''rights  of  woman": 
they  think  that  women  will  benefit  by  removing  the 
bulwarks  which  the  misguided  experience  of  ages  has 
erected  for  their  protection.  A  migratory  system  of 
domestic  existence  might  suit  Madame  Dudevant,  and 
a  few  cases  of  singular  exception;  but  we  cannot 
fancy  that  it  would  be,  after  all,  so  much  to  the 
taste  of  most  ladies  as  the  present  more  permanent 
system.  We  have  some  reminiscence  of  the  stories  of 
the  wolf  and  the  lamb,  when  we  hear  amiable  men 
addressing  a  female  auditory  (in  books,  of  course) 
on  the  advantages  of  a  freer  "development."  We 
are  perhaps  wrong,  but  we  cherish  an  indistinct 
suspicion  that  an  indefinite  extension  of  the  power 
of  selection  would  rather  tend  to  the  advantage 
of  the  sex  which  more  usually  chooses.  But  we 
have  no  occasion  to  avow  such  opinions  now.  Milton 
had  no  such  modern  views :  he  is  frankly  and  hon- 
estly anxious  for  the  rights  of  the  man.  Of  the  doc- 
trine that  divorce  is  only  permitted  for  the  help  of 
wives,  he  exclaims,  "Palpably  uxorious!  who  can  be 
ignorant  that  woman  was  created  for  man,  and  not 
man  for  woman  ?  .  .  .  What  an  injury  is  it  after  wed- 
lock not  to  be  beloved !  what  to  be  slighted !  what  to 
be  contended  with  in  point  of  house-rule  who  shall  be 
the  head ;  not  for  any  parity  of  wisdom,  for  that  were 
something  reasonable,  but  out  of  a  female  pride !  '  I 
suffer  not,'  saith  St.  Paul,  'the  woman  to  usurp  au- 
thority over  the  man.'  If  the  Apostle  could  not  suffer 


326  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

it,"  he  naturally  remarks,  "into  what  mold  is  he 
mortified  that  can  ?"  He  had  a  sincere  desire  to  pre- 
serve men  from  the  society  of  unsocial  and  unsympa- 
thizing  women;  and  that  was  his  principal  idea. 

His  theory,  to  a  certain  extent,  partakes  of  the 
same  notion.  The  following  passage  contains  a  per- 
spicuous exposition  of  it :  — 

"Moses,  Deut.  xxiv.  1,  established  a  grave  and  prudent  law,  full 
of  moral  equity,  full  of  due  consideration  towards  nature,  that  can- 
not be  resisted,  a  law  consenting  with  the  wisest  men  and  civilest 
nations :  that  when  a  man  hath  married  a  wife,  if  it  come  to  pass 
that  he  cannot  love  her  by  reason  of  some  displeasing  natural 
quality  or  unfitness  in  her,  let  him  write  her  a  bill  of  divorce. 
The  intent  of  which  law  undoubtedly  was  this :  that  if  any  good 
and  peaceable  man  should  discover  some  helpless  disagreement  or 
dislike,  either  of  mind  or  body,  whereby  he  could  not  cheerfully 
perform  the  duty  of  a  husband  without  the  perpetual  dissembling 
of  offense  and  disturbance  to  his  spirit,  —  rather  than  to  live  un- 
comfortably and  unhappily  both  to  himself  and  to  his  wife,  rather 
than  to  continue  undertaking  a  duty  which  he  could  not  possibly 
discharge,  he  might  dismiss  her  whom  he  could  not  tolerably,  and 
so  not  conscionably,  retain.  And  this  law  the  Spirit  of  God  by  the 
mouth  of  Solomon,  Prov.  xxx.  21,  23,  testifies  to  be  a  good  and  a 
necessary  law,  by  granting  it  that  'a  hated  woman'  (for  so  the 
Hebrew  word  signifies,  rather  than  'odious,' though  it  come  all  to 
one), — that  'a  hated  woman,  when  she  is  married,  is  a  thing  that 
the  earth  cannot  bear.'  " 

And  he  complains  that  the  civil  law  of  modern  states 
interferes  with  the  "domestical  prerogative  of  the 
husband." 

His  notion  would  seem  to  have  been  that  a  hus- 
band was  bound  not  to  dismiss  his  wife,  except  for  a 
reason  really  sufficient ;  such  as  a  thoroughly  incom- 
patible temper,  an  incorrigible  "muteness,"  and  a  de- 
sertion like  that  of  Mrs.  Milton.  But  he  scarcely 
liked  to  admit  that  in  the  use  of  this  power  he 
should  be  subject  to  the  correction  of  human  tribu- 
nals. He  thought  that  the  circumstances  of  each 
case  depended  upon  "utterless  facts";  and  that  it 
was  practically  impossible  for  a  civil  court  to  decide 


JOHN  MILTON.  327 


on  a  subject  so  delicate  in  its  essence,  and  so  imper- 
ceptible in  its  data.  But  though  amiable  men  doubt- 
less suffer  much  from  the  deficiencies  of  their  wives, 
we  should  hardly  like  to  intrust  them,  in  their  own 
cases,  with  a  jurisdiction  so  prompt  and  summary. 

We  are  far  from  being  concerned,  however,  just 
now,  with  the  doctrine  of  divorce  on  its  intrinsic 
merits :  we  were  only  intending  to  give  such  an  ac- 
count of  Milton's  opinions  upon  it  as  might  serve  to 
illustrate  his  character.  We  think  we  have  shown 
that  it  is  possible  there  may  have  been,  in  his  domes- 
tic relations,  a  little  overweening  pride ;  a  tendency 
to  overrate  the  true  extent  of  masculine  rights,  and 
to  dwell  on  his  wife's  duty  to  be  social  towards  him 
rather  than  on  his  duty  to  be  social  towards  her, — to 
be  rather  sullen  whenever  she  was  not  quite  cheerful. 
Still,  we  are  not  defending  a  lady  for  leaving  her 
husband  for  defects  of  such  inferior  magnitude.  Few 
households  would  be  kept  together,  if  the  right  of 
transition  were  exercised  on  such  trifling  occasions. 
We  are  but  suggesting  that  she  may  share  the  ex- 
cuse which  our  great  satirist  has  suggested  for 
another  unreliable  lady:  "My  mother  was  an  angel; 
but  angels  are  not  always  commodes  a  vivre" 

This  is  not  a  pleasant  part  of  our  subject,  and  we 
must  leave  it.  It  is  more  agreeable  to  relate  that  on 
no  occasion  of  his  life  was  the  substantial  excellence 
of  Milton's  character  more  conclusively  shown  than 
in  his  conduct  at  the  last  stage  of  this  curious  trans- 
action. After  a  very  considerable  interval,  and  after 
the  publication  of  his  book  on  divorce,  Mrs.  Milton 
showed  a  disposition  to  return  to  her  husband ;  and 
in  spite  of  his  theories,  he  received  her  with  open 
arms.  With  great  Christian  patience,  he  received 
her  relations  too.  The  Parliamentary  party  was  then 
victorious ;  and  old  Mr.  Powell,  who  had  suffered 
very  much  in  the  cause  of  the  king,  lived  until  his 
death  untroubled,  and  "wholly  to  his  devotion,"*  as 
we  are  informed,  in  the  house  of  his  son-in-law. 


*Said  by  Philips,  not  of  Mr.  Powell  but  of  Miltou's  father.  — ED. 


328  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

Of  the  other  occurrences  of  Milton's  domestic  life 
we  have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  speak ;  we  must 
turn  to  our  second  source  of  illustration  for  his  char- 
acter,—  his  opinions  on  the  great  public  events  of  his 
time.  It  may  seem  odd,  but  we  believe  that  a  man 
of  austere  character  naturally  tends  both  to  an  exces- 
sive party  spirit  and  to  an  extreme  isolation.  Of 
course  the  circumstances  which  develop  the  one  must 
be  different  from  those  which  are  necessary  to  call 
out  the  other :  party  spirit  requires  companionship ; 
isolation,  if  we  may  be  pardoned  so  original  a  remark, 
excludes  it.  But  though,  as  we  have  shown,  this 
species  of  character  is  prone  to  mental  solitude,  tends 
to  an  intellectual  isolation  where  it  is  possible  and 
as  soon  as  it  can,  yet  when  invincible  circumstances 
throw  it  into  mental  companionship,  when  it  is  driven 
into  earnest  association  with  earnest  men  on  interest- 
ing topics,  its  zeal  becomes  excessive.  Such  a  man's 
mind  is  at  home  only  with  its  own  enthusiasm ;  it  is 
cooped  up  within  the  narrow  limits  of  its  own  ideas, 
and  it  can  make  no  allowance  for  those  who  differ 
from  or  oppose  them.  We  may  see  something  of  this 
excessive  party  zeal  in  Burke.  No  one's  reasons  are 
more  philosophical;  yet  no  one  who  acted  with  a 
party  went  farther  in  aid  of  it  or  was  more  violent 
in  support  of  it.  He  forgot  what  could  be  said  for 
the  tenets  of  the  enemy;  his  imagination  made  that 
enemy  an  abstract  incarnation  of  his  tenets.  A  man, 
too,  who  knows  that  he  formed  his  opinions  originally 
by  a  genuine  and  intellectual  process  is  but  little 
aware  of  the  undue  energy  those  ideas  may  obtain 
from  the  concurrence  of  those  around.  Persons  who 
first  acquired  their  ideas  at  second  hand  are  more 
open  to  a  knowledge  of  their  own  weakness,  and  bet- 
ter acquainted  with  the  strange  force  which  there  is 
in  the  sympathy  of  others.  The  isolated  mind,  when 
it  acts  with  the  popular  feeling,  is  apt  to  exaggerate 
that  feeling  for  the  most  part  by  an  almost  inevitable 
consequence  of  the  feelings  which  render  it  isolated. 


JOHN  MILTON.  329 


Milton  is  an  example  of  this  remark.  In  the  com- 
mencement of  the  struggle  between  Charles  I.  and 
the  Parliament,  he  sympathized  strongly  with  the 
popular  movement,  and  carried  to  what  seems  now  a 
strange  extreme  his  partisanship.  No  one  could  im- 
agine that  the  first  literary  Englishman  of  his  time 
could  write  the  following  passage  011  Charles  I.:  — 

"  Who  can  with  patience  hear  this  filthy,  rascally  fool  speak  so 
irreverently  of  persons  eminent  both  in  greatness  and  piety?  Dare 
you  compare  King  David  with  King  Charles :  a  most  religious 
king  and  prophet  with  a  superstitious  prince,  and  who  was  but  a 
novice  in  the  Christian  religion ;  a  most  prudent,  wise  prince  with 
a  weak  one ;  a  valiant  prince  with  a  cowardly  one ;  finally,  a  most 
just  prince  with  a  most  unjust  one?  Have  you  the  impudence  to 
commend  his  chastity  and  sobriety,  who  is  known  to  have  com- 
mitted all  manner  of  lewdness  in  company  with  his  confidant  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham  ?  It  were  to  no  purpose  to  inquire  into  the 
private  actions  of  his  life,  who  publicly  at  plays  would  embrace 
and  kiss  the  ladies."* 

Whatever  may  be  the  faults  of  that  ill-fated  mon- 
arch,—  and  they  assuredly  were  not  small, — no  one 
would  now  think  this  absurd  invective  to  be  even  an 
excusable  exaggeration.  It  misses  the  true  mark  alto- 
gether, and  is  the  expression  of  a  strongly  imagina- 
tive mind,  which  has  seen  something  that  it  did  not 
like,  and  is  unable  in  consequence  to  see  anything 
that  has  any  relation  to  it  distinctly  or  correctly. 
But  with  the  supremacy  of  the  Long  Parliament  Mil- 
ton's attachment  to  their  cause  ceased.  No  one  has 
drawn  a  more  unfavorable  picture  of  the  rule  which 
they  established.  Years  after  their  supremacy  had 
passed  away,  and  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy 
had  covered  with  a  new  and  strange  scene  the  old 
actors  and  the  old  world,  he  thrust  into  a  most  un- 
likely part  of  his  "History  of  England"  [Book  iii.] 
the  following  attack  on  them :  — 

"But  when  once  the  superficial  zeal  and  popular  fumes  that 
acted  their  New  Magistracy  were  cooled  and  spent  in  them,  straight 


*  "Defense  of  the  People  of  England,"  Chap.  iv. 


330  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

every  one  betook  himself  (setting  the  Commonwealth  behind,  his 
private  ends  before)  to  do  as  his  own  profit  or  ambition  led  him. 
Then  was  justice  delayed,  and  soon  after  denied ;  spite  and  favor 
determined  all :  hence  faction,  thence  treachery,  both  at  home  and 
in  the  field ;  everywhere  wrong  and  oppression ;  foul  and  horrid 
deeds  committed  daily,  or  maintained,  in  secret  or  in  open.  Some 
who  had  been  called  from  shops  and  warehouses,  without  other 
merit,  to  sit  in  supreme  councils  and  committees  (as  their  breeding 
was),  fell  to  huckster  the  Commonwealth.  Others  did  thereafter  as 
men  could  soothe  and  humor  them  best ;  so  he  who  would  give  most, 
or  under  covert  of  hypocritical  zeal  insinuate  basest,  enjoyed  un- 
worthily the  rewards  of  learning  and  fidelity,  or  escaped  the  punish- 
ment of  his  crimes  and  misdeeds.  Their  votes  and  ordinances, 
which  men  looked  should  have  contained  the  repealing  of  bad  laws, 
and  the  immediate  constitution  of  better,  resounded  with  nothing 
else  but  new  impositions,  taxes,  excises,  —  yearly,  monthly,  weekly ; 
not  to  reckon  the  offices,  gifts,  and  preferments  bestowed  and 
shared  among  themselves." 

His  dislike  of  this  system  of  committees,  and  of 
the  generally  dull  and  unemphatic  administration  of 
the  Commonwealth,  attached  him  to  the  Puritan  army 
and  to  Cromwell;  but  in  the  continuation  of  the  pas- 
sage we  have  referred  to,  he  expresses  — with  some- 
thing, let  it  be  said,  of  a  schoolmaster  feeling — an 
unfavorable  judgment  on  their  career:  — 

"For  Britain,  to  speak  a  truth  not  often  spoken,  as  it  is  a  land 
fruitful  enough  of  men  stout  and  courageous  in  war,  so  it  is  natur- 
ally not  over-fertile  of  men  able  to  govern  justly  and  prudently 
in  peace,  trusting  only  in  their  mother-wit ;  who  consider  not  justly 
that  civility,  prudence,  love  of  the  public  good  more  than  of  money 
or  vain  honor,  are  to  this  soil  in  a  manner  outlandish, — grow  not 
here,  but  in  minds  well  implanted  with  solid  and  elaborate  breeding ; 
too  impolitic  else  and  rude,  if  not  headstrong  and  intractable  to 
the  industry  and  virtue  either  of  executing  or  understanding  true 
civil  government.  Valiant  indeed,  and  prosperous  to  win  a  field ; 
but  to  know  the  end  and  reason  of  winning,  unjudicious  and  unwise : 
in  good  or  bad  success,  alike  unteachable.  For  the  sun,  which  we 
want,  ripens  wits  as  well  as  fruits ;  and  as  wine  and  oil  are  imported 
to  us  from  abroad,  so  must  ripe  understanding  and  many  civil 
virtues  be  imported  into  our  minds  from  foreign  writings  and 
examples  of  best  ages ;  we  shall  else  miscarry  still,  and  come  short 
in  the  attempts  of  any  great  enterprise.  Hence  did  their  victories 


JOHN  MILTON.  331 


prove  as  fruitless  as  their  losses  dangerous,  and  left  them  still, 
conquering,  under  the  same  grievances  that  men  suffer  conquered : 
which  was  indeed  unlikely  to  go  otherwise,  unless  men  more  than 
vulgar  —  bred  up,  as  few  of  them  were,  in  the  knowledge  of  ancient 
and  illustrious  deeds,  invincible  against  many  and  vain  titles,  impar- 
tial to  friendships  and  relations  —  had  conducted  their  affairs;  but 
then,  from  the  chapman  to  the  retailer,  many  whose  ignorance  was 
more  audacious  than  the  rest  were  admitted  with  all  their  sordid  rudi- 
ments to  bear  no  mean  sway  among  them,  both  in  church  and  state.'' 

We  need  not  speak  of  Milton's  disapprobation  of 
the  Restoration.  Between  him  and  the  world  of 
Charles  II.  the  opposition  was  inevitable  and  infinite. 
Therefore  the  general  fact  remains,  that  except  in 
the  early  struggles,  when  he  exaggerated  the  popular 
feeling,  he  remained  solitary  in  opinion,  and  had  very 
little  sympathy  with  any  of  the  prevailing  parties  of 
his  time. 

Milton's  own  theory  of  government  is  to  be  learned 
from  his  works.  He  advocated  a  free  commonwealth, 
without  rule  of  a  single  person  or  House  of  Lords ; 
but  the  form  of  his  projected  commonwealth  was 
peculiar.  He  thought  that  a  certain  perpetual  council, 
which  should  be  elected  by  the  nation  once  for  all, 
and  the  number  of  which  should  be  filled  up  as  vacan- 
cies might  occur,  was  the  best  possible  machine  of 
gpvernment.  He  did  not  confine  his  advocacy  to  ab- 
stract theory,  but  proposed  the  immediate  establish- 
ment of  such  a  council  in  this  country.  We  need  not 
go  into  an  elaborate  discussion  to  show  the  errors  of 
this  conclusion.  Hardly  any  one,  then  or  since,  has 
probably  adopted  it.  The  interest  of  the  theoretical 
parts  of  Milton's  political  works  is  entirely  historical. 
The  tenets  advocated  are  not  of  great  value,  and  the 
arguments  by  which  he  supports  them  are  perhaps  of 
less ;  but  their  relation  to  the  times  in  which  they 
were  written  gives  them  a  very  singular  interest. 
The  time  of  the  Commonwealth  was  the  only  period 
in  English  history  in  which  the  fundamental  ques- 
tions of  government  have  been  thrown  open  for  pop- 
ular discussion  in  this  country.  We  read  in  French 


332  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


literature,  discussions  on  the  advisability  of  establish- 
ing a  monarchy,  on  the  advisability  of  establishing  a 
republic,  on  the  advisability  of  establishing  an  empire ; 
and  before  we  proceed  to  examine  the  arguments,  we 
cannot  help  being  struck  at  the  strange  contrast 
which  this  multiplicity  of  open  questions  presents  to 
our  own  uninquiring  acquiescence  in  the  hereditary 
polity  which  has  descended  to  us.  "King,  Lords,  and 
Commons"  are,  we  think,  ordinances  of  nature.  Yet 
Milton's  political  writings  embody  the  reflections  of 
a  period  when,  for  a  few  years,  the  government  of 
England  was  nearly  as  much  a  subject  of  fundamental 
discussion  as  that  of  France  was  in  1851.  An  "invi- 
tation to  thinkers,"  to  borrow  the  phrase  of  Necker, 
was  given  by  the  circumstances  of  the  time;  and 
with  the  habitual  facility  of  philosophical  speculation, 
it  was  accepted,  and  used  to  the  utmost. 

Such  are  not  the  kind  of  speculations  in  which  we 
expect  assistance  from  Milton.  It  is  not  in  its  trans- 
actions with  others,  in  its  dealings  with  the  manifold 
world,  that  the  isolated  and  austere  mind  shows  itself 
to  the  most  advantage.  Its  strength  lies  in  itself.  It 
has  "a  calm  and  pleasing  solitariness."  It  hears 
thoughts  which  others  cannot  hear.  It  enjoys  the 
quiet  and  still  air  of  delightful  studies;  and  is  ever 
conscious  of  such  musing  and  poetry  "as  is  not  to 
be  obtained  by  the  invocation  of  Dame  Memory  and 
her  twin  daughters,  but  by  devout  prayer  to  that 
Eternal  Spirit,  who  can  enrich  with  all  utterance  and 
knowledge,  and  sends  out  his  seraphim  with  the  hal- 
lowed fire  of  his  altar." 

"Descend  from  heaven,  Urania,  by  that  name 
If  rightly  thou  art  called,  whose  voice  divine 
Following,  above  th'  Olympian  hill  I  soar, 
Above  the  flight  of  Pegasean  wing. 
The  meaning,  not  the  name,  I  call ;  for  thou 
Nor  of  the  Muses  nine,  nor  on  the  top 
Of  old  Olympus  dwell'st,  but  heavenly  born : 
Before  the  hills  appeared,  or  fountain  flowed, 
Thou  with  eternal  Wisdom  didst  converse, 


JOHN  MILTON.  333 


Wisdom  thy  sister,  and  with  her  didst  play 
In  presence  of  th'  Almighty  Father,  pleased 
With  thy  celestial  song.     Up  led  by  thee, 
Into  the  heaven  of  heavens  I  have  presumed, 
An  earthly  guest,  and  drawn  empyreal  air, 
Thy  tempering.     With  like  safety  guided  down, 
Eeturn  me  to  my  native  element ; 
Lest  from  this  flying  steed  unreined  (as  once 
Bellerophon,  though  from  a  lower  clime), 
Dismounted,  on  th'  Aleian  field  I  fall, 
Erroneous  there  to  wander,  and  forlorn. 
Half  yet  remains  unsung,  but  narrower  bound 
Within  the  visible  diurnal  sphere : 
Standing  on  earth,  not  rapt  above  the  pole, 
More  safe  I  sing  with  mortal  voice,  unchanged 
To  hoarse  or  mute,  though  fallen  on  evil  days, 
On  evil  days  though  fallen,  and  evil  tongues ; 
In  darkness,  and  with  dangers  compassed  round, 
And  solitude :  yet  not  alone,  while  thou 
Visit'st  my  slumbers  nightly,  or  when  morn 
Purples  the  east.     Still  govern  thou  my  song, 
Urania,  and  fit  audience  find,  though  few ; 
But  drive  far  off  the  barbarous  dissonance 
Of  Bacchus  and  his  revelers,  the  race 
Of  that  wild  rout  that  tore  the  Thracian  bard 
In  Khodope,  where  woods  and  rocks  had  ears 
To  rapture,  till  the  savage  clamor  drowned 
Both  harp  and  voice,  nor  could  the  Muse  defend 
Her  son.     So  fail  not  thou,  who  thee  implores ; 
For  thou  art  heavenly,  she  an  empty  dream."* 

"An  ancient  clergyman  of  Dorsetshire,  Dr.  Wright, 
found  John  Milton  in  a  small  chamber  hung  with 
rusty  green,  sitting  in  an  elbow-chair,  and  dressed 
neatly  in  black ;  pale,  but  not  cadaverous.  .  .  .  He 
used  also  to  sit  in  a  gray  coarse-cloth  coat  at  the 
door  of  his  house  near  Bunhill  Fields,  in  warm  sunny 
weather ; "  f  and  the  common  people  said  he  was 
inspired. 

If  from  the  man  we  turn  to  his  works,  we  are 
struck  at  once  with  two  singular  contrasts.  The  first 

*  "  Paradise  Lost,"  Book  vii.  t  Rfebarcteon. 


334  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

of  them  is  this  :  —  The  distinction  between  ancient 
and  modern  art  is  sometimes  said,  and  perhaps  truly, 
to  consist  in  the  simple  bareness  of  the  imaginative 
conceptions  which  we  find  in  ancient  art,  and  the 
comparatively  complex  clothing  in  which  all  modern 
creations  are  embodied.  If  we  adopt  this  distinction, 
Milton  seems  in  some  sort  ancient,  and  in  some  sort 
modern.  Nothing  is  so  simple  as  the  subject-matter 
of  his  works.  The  two  greatest  of  his  creations,  the 
character  of  Satan  and  the  character  of  Eve,  are  two 
of  the  simplest  —  the  latter  probably  the  very  simplest 
—  in  the  whole  field  of  literature.  On  this  side  Mil- 
ton's art  is  classical.  On  the  other  hand,  in  no  writer 
is  the  imagery  more  profuse,  the  illustrations  more 
various,  the  dress  altogether  more  splendid  ;  and  in 
this  respect  the  style  of  his  art  seems  romantic  and 
modern.  In  real  truth,  however,  it  is  only  ancient  art 
in  a  modern  disguise  :  the  dress  is  a  mere  dress,  and 
can  be  stripped  off  when  we  will, —  we  all  of  us  do 
perhaps  in  memory  strip  it  off  for  ourselves.  Not- 
withstanding the  lavish  adornments  with  which  her 
image  is  presented,  the  character  of  Eve  is  still  the 
simplest  sort  of  feminine  essence, —  the  pure  embodi- 
ment of  that  inner  nature  which  we  believe  and  hope 
that  women  have.  The  character  of  Satan,  though  it 
is  not  so  easily  described,  has  nearly  as  few  elements 
in  it.  The  most  purely  modern  conceptions  will  not 
bear  to  be  unclothed  in  this  manner  :  their  romantic 
garment  clings  inseparably  to  them.  Hamlet  and 
Lear  are  not  to  be  thought  of  except  as  complex 
characters,  with  very  involved  and  complicated  em- 
bodiments. They  are  as  difficult  to  draw  out  in  words 
as  the  common  characters  of  life  are  ;  that  of  Hamlet, 
perhaps,  is  more  so.  If  we  make  it,  as  perhaps  we 
should,  the  characteristic  of  modern  and  romantic  art 
that  it  presents  us  with  creations  which  we  cannot 
think  of  or  delineate  except  as  very  varied,  and  so 
to  say  circumstantial,  we  must  not  rank  Milton  among 
the  masters  of  romantic  art.  And  without  involving 


JOHN   MILTON".  335 


the  subject  in  the  troubled  sea  of  an  old  controversy, 
we  may  say  that  the  most  striking  of  the  poetical 
peculiarities  of  Milton  is  the  bare  simplicity  of  his 
ideas  and  the  rich  abundance  of  his  illustrations. 

Another  of  his  peculiarities  is  equally  striking. 
There  seems  to  be  such  a  thing  as  second-hand  po- 
etry :  some  poets,  musing  on  the  poetry  of  other  men, 
have  unconsciously  shaped  it  into  something  of  their 
own.  The  new  conception  is  like  the  original,  it  would 
never  probably  have  existed  had  not  the  original  ex- 
isted previously :  still,  it  is  sufficiently  different  from 
the  original  to  be  a  new  thing,  not  a  copy  or  a  pla- 
giarism ;  it  is  a  creation,  though,  so  to  say,  a  suggested 
creation.  Gray  is  as  good  an  example  as  can  be 
found  of  a  poet  whose  works  abound  in  this  species 
of  semi-original  conceptions.  Industrious  critics  track 
his  best  lines  back,  and  find  others  like  them  which 
doubtless  lingered  near  his  fancy  "while  he  was  writ- 
ing them.  The  same  critics  have  been  equally  busy 
with  the  works  of  Milton,  and  equally  successful. 
They  find  traces  of  his  reading  in  half  his  works ; 
not,  which  any  reader  could  do,  in  overt  similes  and 
distinct  illustrations,  but  also  in  the  very  texture  of 
the  thought  and  the  expression.  In  many  cases, 
doubtless,  they  discover,  more  than  he  himself  knew. 
A  mind  like  his,  which  has  an  immense  store  of  im- 
aginative recollections,  can  never  know  which  of  his 
own  imaginations  is  exactly  suggested  by  which  recol- 
lection. Men  awake  with  their  best  ideas ;  it  is  sel- 
dom worth  while  to  investigate  very  curiously  whence 
they  came.  Our  proper  business  is  to  adapt  and  mold 
and  act  upon  them.  Of  poets  perhaps  this  is  true 
even  more  remarkably  than  of  other  men :  their  ideas 
are  suggested  in  modes,  and  according  to  laws,  which 
are  even  more  impossible  to  specify  than  the  ideas 
of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Second-hand  poetry,  so  to 
say,  often  seems  quite  original  to  the  poet  himself; 
he  frequently  does  not  know  that  he  derived  it  from 
an  old  memory :  years  afterwards  it  may  strike  him 


336  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

as  it  does  others.  Still,  in  general,  such  inferior  spe- 
cies of  creation  is  not  so  likely  to  be  found  in  minds 
of  singular  originality  as  in  those  of  less.  A  brood- 
ing, placid,  cultivated  mind,  like  that  of  Gray,  is  the 
place  where  we  should  expect  to  meet  with  it.  Great 
originality  disturbs  the  adaptive  process,  removes  the 
mind  of  the  poet  from  the  thoughts  of  other  men, 
and  occupies  it  with  its  own  heated  and  flashing 
thoughts.  Poetry  of  the  second  degree  is  like  the 
secondary  rocks  of  modern  geology, —  a  still,  gentle, 
alluvial  formation ;  the  igneous  glow  of  primary  genius 
brings  forth  ideas  like  the  primeval  granite,  simple, 
astounding,  and  alone.  Milton's  case  is  an  exception 
to  this  rule.  His  mind  has  marked  originality,  proba- 
bly as  much  of  it  as  any  in  literature ;  but  it  has  as 
much  of  molded  recollection  as  any  mind  too.  His 
poetry  in  consequence  is  like  an  artificial  park,  green 
and  soft  and  beautiful,  yet  with  outlines  bold,  distinct, 
and  firm,  and  the  eternal  rock  ever  jutting  out ;  or 
better  still,  it  is  like  our  own  lake  scenery,  where 
nature  has  herself  the  same  combination,  where  we 
have  Rydal  Water  side  by  side  with  the  everlasting 
upheaved  mountain.  Milton  has  the  same  union  of 
softened  beauty  with  unimpaired  grandeur;  and  it  is 
his  peculiarity. 

These  are  the  two  contrasts  which  puzzle  us  at 
first  in  Milton,  and  which  distinguish  him  from  other 
poets  in  our  remembrance  afterwards.  We  have  a 
superficial  complexity  in  illustration  and  imagery  and 
metaphor ;  and  in  contrast  with  it  we  observe  a  latent 
simplicity  of  idea,  an  almost  rude  strength  of  concep- 
tion. The  underlying  thoughts  are  few,  though  the 
flowers  on  the  surface  are  so  many.  We  have  like- 
wise the  perpetual  contrast  of  the  soft  poetry  of  the 
memory,  and  the  firm  —  as  it  were,  fused  —  and  glow- 
ing poetry  of  the  imagination.  His  words,  we  may 
half  fancifully  say,  are  like  his  character :  there  is 
the  same  austerity  in  the  real  essence,  the  same  ex- 
quisiteness  of  sense,  the  same  delicacy  of  form  which 


JOHN   MILTON.  337 


we  know  that  he  had,  the  same  music  which  we  im- 
agine there  was  in  his  voice.  In  both  his  character 
and  his  poetry  there  was  an  ascetic  nature  in  a 
sheath  of  beauty. 

No  book,  perhaps,  which  has  ever  been  written  is 
more  difficult  to  criticize  than  "Paradise  Lost."  The 
only  way  to  criticize  a  work  of  the  imagination  is, 
to  describe  its  effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader,— 
at  any  rate,  of  the  critic ;  and  this  can  only  be  ade- 
quately delineated  by  strong  illustrations,  apt  similes, 
and  perhaps  a  little  exaggeration.  The  task  is  in  its 
very  nature  not  an  easy  one :  the  poet  paints  a  pic- 
ture 011  the  fancy  of  the  critic,  and  the  critic  has  in 
some  sort  to  copy  it  on  the  paper;  he  must  say  what 
it  is  before  he  can  make  remarks  upon  it.  But  in 
the  case  of  "Paradise  Lost"  we  hardly  like  to  use 
illustrations.  The  subject  is  one  which  the  imagina- 
tion rather  shrinks  from.  At  any  rate,  it  requires 
courage  and  an  effort  to  compel  the  mind  to  view 
such  a  subject  as  distinctly  and  vividly  as  it  views 
other  subjects.  Another  peculiarity  of  "Paradise 
Lost"  makes  the  difficulty  even  greater.  It  does  not 
profess  to  be  a  mere  work  of  art ;  or  rather,  it  claims 
to  be  by  no  means  that  and  that  only.  It  starts  with 
a  dogmatic  aim :  it  avowedly  intends  to 

"assert  eternal  Providence, 
And  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  men." 

In  this  point  of  view  we  "have  always  had  a  sympathy 
with  the  Cambridge  mathematician  who  has  been  so 
much  abused.  He  said,  "After  all,  'Paradise  Lost' 
proves  nothing";  and  various  persons  of  poetical  tastes 
and  temperament  have  been  very  severe  on  the  pro- 
saic observation.  Yet,  "after  all,"  he  was  right :  Milton 
professed  to  prove  something ;  he  was  too  profound 
a  critic  —  rather,  he  had  too  profound  an  instinct  of 
those  eternal  principles  of  art  which  criticism  tries 
to  state  —  not  to  know  that  on  such  a  subject  he  must 
prove  something.  He  professed  to  deal  with  the  great 
VOL.  I. —22 


338  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

problem  of  human  destiny :  to  show  why  man  was 
created,  in  what  kind  of  universe  he  lives,  whence  he 
came  and  whither  he  goes.  He  dealt  of  necessity 
with  the  greatest  of  subjects;  he  had  to  sketch  the 
greatest  of  objects.  He  was  concerned  with  infinity 
and  eternity  even  more  than  with  time  and  sense : 
he  undertook  to  delineate  the  ways  and  consequently 
the  character  of  Providence,  as  well  as  the  conduct 
and  the  tendencies  of  man.  The  essence  of  success 
in  such  an  attempt  is  to  satisfy  the  religious  sense  of 
man;  to  bring  home  to  our  hearts  what  we  know  to 
be  true ;  to  teach  us  what  we  have  not  seen ;  to 
awaken  us  to  what  we  have  forgotten;  to  remove  the 
"covering"  from  all  people,  and  the  "veil"  that  is 
spread  over  all  nations :  to  give  us,  in  a  word,  such 
a  conception  of  things  divine  and  human  as  we  can 
accept,  believe,  and  trust.  The  true  doctrine  of  criti- 
cism demands  what  Milton  invites,  —  an  examination 
of  the  degree  in  which  the  great  epic  attains  this 
aim.  And  if,  in  examining  it,  we  find  it  necessary  to 
use  unusual  illustrations,  and  plainer  words  than  are 
customary,  it  must  be  our  excuse  that  we  do  not  think 
the  subject  can  be  made  clear  without  them. 

The  defect  of  "Paradise  Lost"  is  that,  after  all,  it 
is  founded  on  a  political  transaction.  The  scene  is  in 
heaven  very  early  in  the  history  of  the  universe,  be- 
fore the  creation  of  man  or  the  fall  of  Satan.  We 
have  a  description  of  a  court  [Book  v.].  The  angels, 

"by  imperial  summons  called," 
appear: — 

"Under  their  hierarchs  in  orders  bright 
Ten  thousand  thousand  ensigns  high  advanced ; 

.   Standards  and  gonfalons  'twixt  van  and  rear 
Stream  in  the  air,  and  for  distinction  serve 
Of  hierarchies,  of  orders,  and  degrees." 

To  this  assemblage  "th'  Omnipotent"  speaks: — 

' '  Hear,  all  ye  angels,  progeny  of  light, 
Thrones,  dominations,  princedoms,  virtues,  powers, 


JOHN   MILTON.  339 


Hear  my  decree,  which  unrevoked  shall  stand : 

This  day  I  have  begot  whom  I  declare 

My  only  Son,   and  on  this  holy  hill 

Him  have  anointed,  whom  ye  now  behold 

At  my  right  hand ;  your  Head  I  him  appoint : 

And  by  myself  have  sworn,  to  him  shall  bow 

All  knees  in  heaven,  and  shall  confess  him  Lord; 

Under  his  great  vicegerent  reign  abide 

United  as  one  individual  soul, 

Forever  happy.     Him  who  disobeys, 

Me  disobeys,  breaks  union,  and  that  day, 

Cast  out  from  God  and  blessed  vision,  falls 

Int'  utter  darkness,  deep  ingulfed,  his  place 

Ordained  without  redemption,  without  end." 

This  act  of  patronage  was  not  popular  at  court; 
and  why  should  it  have  been  ?  The  religious  sense  is 
against  it.  The  worship  which  sinful  men  owe  to 
God  is  not  transferable  to  lieutenants  and  vicegerents. 
The  whole  scene  of  the  court  jars  upon  a  true  feel- 
ing; we  seem  to  be  reading  about  some  emperor  of 
history,  who  admits  his  son  to  a  share  in  the  empire, 
who  confers  on  him  a  considerable  jurisdiction,  and 
requires  officials,  with  "standards  and  gonfalons,"  to 
bow  before  him.  The  orthodoxy  of  Milton  is  quite  as 
questionable  as  his  accuracy;  the  old  Athanasian 
creed  was  not  made  by  persons  who  would  allow 
such  a  picture  as  that  of  Milton  to  stand  before  their 
imaginations.  The  generation  of  the  Son  was  to  them 
a  fact  "before  all  time,"  an  eternal  fact.  There  was 
no  question  in  their  minds  of  patronage  or  promo- 
tion :  the  Son  was  the  Son  before  all  time,  just  as 
the  Father  was  the  Father  before  all  time.  Milton 
had  in  such  matters  a  bold  but  not  very  sensitive  im- 
agination. He  accepted  the  inevitable  materialism  of 
Biblical  (and  to  some  extent  of  all  religious)  language 
as  distinct  revelation.  He  certainly  believed,  in  con- 
tradiction to  the  old  creed,  that  God  had  both  "parts 
and  passions."  He  imagined  that  earth  is 

"but  the  shadow  of  heaven,  and  things  therein 
Each  to  other  like  more  than  on  earth  is  thought."* 

*Book  v.,  Raphael  to  Adam. 


340        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

From  some  passages  it  would  seem  that  he  actually 
thought  of  God  as  having  "the  members  and  form" 
of  a  man.  Naturally,  therefore,  he  would  have  no 
toleration  for  the  mysterious  notions  of  time  and 
eternity  which  are  involved  in  the  traditional  doc- 
trine. We  are  not,  however,  now  concerned  with  Mil- 
ton's belief,  but  with  his  representation  of  his  creed, 
—  his  picture,  so  to  say,  of  it  in  "Paradise  Lost"; 
still,  as  we  cannot  but  think,  that  picture  is  almost 
irreligious,  and  certainly  different  from  that  which 
has  been  generally  accepted  in  Christendom.  Such 
phrases  as  "before  all  time,"  "eternal  generation," 
are  doubtless  very  vaguely  interpreted  by  the  mass 
of  men;  nevertheless,  no  sensitively  orthodox  man 
could  have  drawn  the  picture  of  a  generation,  not  to 
say  an  exaltation,  in  time. 

We   shall   see  this  more   clearly  by  reading  what 
follows  in  the  poem. 

"All  seemed  well  pleased;  all  seemed,  but  were  not  all." 

One  of  the  archangels,  whose  name  can  be  guessed, 
decidedly  disapproved,  and  calls  a  meeting,  at  which 
he  explains  that 

"orders  and  degrees 
Jar  not  with  liberty,  but  well  consist ; " 

but  still,  that  the  promotion  of  a  new  person,  on 
grounds  of  relationship  merely,  above  —  even  infinitely 
above  —  the  old  angels,  with  imperial  titles,  was  a 
"new  law,"  and  rather  tyrannical.  Abdiel, 

"than  whom  none  with  more  zeal  adored 
The  Deity,  and  divine  commands  obeyed," 

attempts  a  defense  :  — 

"Grant  it  thee  unjust, 
That  equal  over  equals  monarch  reign : 
Thyself,  though  great  and  glorious,  dost  thou  count, 
Or  all  angelic  nature  joined  in  one, 
Equal  to  him  begotten  Son?  by  whom 
As  by  his  word  the  mighty  Father  made 


JOHN  MILTON.  341 


All  things,  even  thee,  and  all  the  spirits  of  heaven 
By  him  created  in  their  bright  degrees, 
Crowned  them  with  glory,  and  to  their  glory  named 
Thrones,  dominations,  princedoms,  virtues,  powers, 
Essential  Powers ;  nor  by  his  reign  obscured, 
But  more  illustrious  made,   since  he  the  Head 
One  of  our  number  thus  reduced  becomes, 
His  laws  our  laws,  all  honor  to  him  done 
Returns  our  own.     Cease  then  this  impious  rage, 
And  tempt  not  these ;  but  hasten  to  appease 
Th'  incensed  Father  and  th'  incensed  Son, 
While  pardon  may  be  found,  in  time  besought." 

Yet  .though  Abdiel's  intentions  were  undeniably  good, 
his  argument  is  rather  specious.  Acting  as  an  in- 
strument in  the  process  of  creation  would  scarcely 
give  a  valid  claim  to  the  obedience  of  the  created 
being.  Power  may  be  shown  in  the  act,  no  doubt ; 
but  mere  power  gives  no  true  claim  to  the  obedience 
of  moral  beings.  It  is  a  kind  of  principle  of  all  man- 
ner of  idolatries  and  false  religions  to  believe  that  it 
does  so.  Satan,  besides,  takes  issue  on  the  fact :  — 

"That  we  were  formed  then,  say'st  thou?  and  the  work 
Of  secondary  hands,  by  task  transferred 
From  Father  to  his  Son  ?    Strange  point  and  new ! 
Doctrine  which  we  would  know  whence  learned." 

And  we  must  say  that  the  speech  in  which  the  new 
ruler  is  introduced  to  the  "Thrones,  dominations, 
princedoms,  virtues,  powers,"  is  hard  to  reconcile 
with  Abdiel's  exposition.  "This  day"  he  seems  to 
have  come  into  existence,  and  could  hardly  have 
assisted  at  the  creation  of  the  angels,  who  are  not 
young,  and  who  converse  with  one  another  like  old 
acquaintances. 

We  have  gone  into  this  part  of  the  subject  at 
length,  because  it  is  the  source  of  the  great  error 
which  pervades  "Paradise  Lost":  Satan  is  made  in- 
teresting. This  has  been  the  charge  of  a  thousand 
orthodox  and  even  heterodox  writers  against  Milton. 
Shelley,  on  the  other  hand,  has  gloried  in  it ;  and 


342  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

fancied,  if  we  remember  rightly,  that  Milton  inten- 
tionally ranged  himself  on  the  Satanic  side  of  the 
universe,  just  as  Shelley  himself  would  have  done, 
and  that  he  wished  to  show  the  falsity  of  the  ordi- 
nary theology.  But  Milton  was  born  an  age  too  early 
for  such  aims,  and  was  far  too  sincere  to  have  advo- 
cated any  doctrine  in  a  form  so  indirect.  He  believed 
every  word  he  said.  He  was  not  conscious  of  the 
effect  his  teaching  would  produce  in  an  age  like  this, 
when  skepticism  is  in  the  air,  and  when  it  is  not 
possible  to  help  looking  coolly  on  his  delineations. 
Probably  in  our  boyhood  we  can  recollect  a  period 
when  any  solemn  description  of  celestial  events  would 
have  commanded  our  respect;  we  should  not  have 
dared  to  read  it  intelligently,  to  canvass  its  details 
and  see  what  it  meant :  it  was  a  religious  book ;  it 
sounded  reverential,  and  that  would  have  sufficed. 
Something  like  this  was  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  Even  Milton  probably  shared 
in  a  vague  reverence  for  religious  language ;  he 
hardly  felt  the  moral  effect  of  the  pictures  he  was 
drawing.  His  artistic  instinct,  too,  often  hurries  him 
away.  His  Satan  was  to  him,  as  to  us,  the  hero  of 
his  poem  :  having  commenced  by  making  him  resist 
on  an  occasion  which  in  an  earthly  kingdom  would 
have  been  excusable  and  proper,  he  probably  a  little 
sympathized  with  him,  just  as  his  readers  do. 

The  interest  of  Satan's  character  is  at  its  height 
in  the  first  two  books.  Coleridge  justly  compared  it 
to  that  of  Napoleon.  There  is  the  same  pride,  the 
same  Satanic  ability,  the  same  will,  the  same  egotism. 
His  character  seems  to  grow  with  his  position.  He 
is  far  finer  after  his  fall,  in  misery  and  suffering, 
with  scarcely  any  resource  except  in  himself,  than  he 
was  originally  in  heaven;  at  least,  if  Raphael's  de- 
scription of  him  can  be  trusted.  No  portrait  which 
imagination  or  history  has  drawn  of  a  revolutionary 
anarch  is  nearly  so  perfect;  there  is  all  the  grandeur 
of  the  greatest  human  mind,  and  a  certain  infinitude 


JOHN  MILTON.  343 


in  his  circumstances  which  humanity  must  ever  want. 
Few  Englishmen  feel  a  profound  reverence  for  Na- 
poleon I. ;  there  was  no  French  alliance  in  his  time ; 
we  have  most  of  us  some  tradition  of  antipathy  to 
him.  Yet  hardly  any  Englishman  can  read  the  ac- 
count of  the  campaign  of  1814  without  feeling  his 
interest  in  the  Emperor  to  be  strong,  and  without 
perhaps  being  conscious  of  a  latent  wish  that  he  may 
succeed.  Our  opinion  is  against  him,  our  serious  wish 
is  of  course  for  England ;  but  the  imagination  has  a 
sympathy  of  its  own,  and  will  not  give  place.  We 
read  about  the  great  general,  —  never  greater  than  in 
that  last  emergency,  —  showing  resources  of  genius 
that  seem  almost  infinite,  and  that  assuredly  have 
never  been  surpassed,  yet  vanquished,  yielding  to  the 
power  of  circumstances,  to  the  combined  force  of 
adversaries  each  of  whom  singly  he  outmatches  in 
strength,  and  all  of  whom  together  he  surpasses  in 
majesty  and  in  mind.  Something  of  the  same  sort 
of  interest  belongs  to  the  Satan  of  the  first  two  books 
of  "  Paradise  Lost."  We  know  that  he  will  be  van- 
quished; his  name  is  not  a  recommendation.  Still, 
we  do  not  imagine  distinctly  the  minds  by  which  he 
is  to  be  vanquished ;  we  do  not  take  the  same  interest 
in  them  that  we  do  in  him;  our  sympathies,  our 
fancy,  are  on  his  side. 

Perhaps  much  of  this  was  inevitable ;  yet  what 
a  defect  it  is !  especially  what  a  defect  in  Milton's 
own  view,  and  looked  at  with  the  stern  realism  with 
which  he  regarded  it !  Suppose  that  the  author  of 
evil  in  the  universe  were  the  most  attractive  being 
in  it ;  suppose  that  the  source  of  all  sin  were  the 
origin  of  all  interest  to  us !  We  need  not  dwell  upon 
this. 

As  we  have  said,  much  of  this  was  difficult  to 
avoid,  if  indeed  it  could  be  avoided  in  dealing  with 
such  a  theme.  Even  Milton  shrank,  in  some  measure, 
from  delineating  the  Divine  character.  His  imagina- 
tion evidently  halts  when  it  is  required  to  perform 


3-14  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

that  task.  The  more  delicate  imagination  of  our 
modern  world  would  shrink  still  more.  Any  person 
who  will  consider  what  such  an  attempt  must  end  in, 
will  find  his  nerves  quiver.  But  by  a  curiously  fatal 
error,  Milton  has  selected  for  delineation  exactly  that 
part  of  the  Divine  nature  which  is  most  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  human  faculties,  and  which  is  also,  when 
we  try  to  describe  our  fancy  of  it,  the  least  effective 
to  our  minds.  He  has  made  God  argue.  Now,  the 
procedure  of  the  Divine  mind  from  truth  to  truth 
must  ever  be  incomprehensible  to  us;  the  notion,  in- 
deed, of  his  proceeding  at  all  is  a  contradiction :  to 
some  extent,  at  least,  it  is  inevitable  that  we  should 
use  such  language,  but  we  know  it  is  in  reality  inap- 
plicable. A  long  train  of  reasoning  in  such  a  con- 
nection is  so  out  of  place  as  to  be  painful;  and  yet 
Milton  has  many.  He  relates  a  series  of  family 
prayers  in  heaven,  with  sermons  afterwards,  which 
are  very  tedious.  Even  Pope  was  shocked  at  the 
notion  of  Providence  talking  like  "a  school-divine."* 
And  there  is  the  still  worse  error,  that  if  you  once 
attribute  reasoning  to  him,  subsequent  logicians  may 
discover  that  he  does  not  reason  very  well. 

Another  way  in  which  Milton  has  contrived  to 
strengthen  our  interest  in  Satan  is  the  number  and 
insipidity  of  the  good  angels.  There  are  old  rules 
as  to  the  necessity  of  a  supernatural  machinery  for 
an  epic  poem,  worth  some  fraction  of  the  paper  on 
which  they  are  written,  and  derived  from  the  practice 
of  Homer,  who  believed  his  gods  and  goddesses  to  be 
real  beings,  and  would  have  been  rather  harsh  with 
a  critic  who  called  them  machinery.  These  rules  had 
probably  an  influence  with  Milton,  and  induced  him 
to  manipulate  these  serious  angels  more  than  he 
would  have  done  otherwise.  They  appear  to  be  ex- 
cellent administrators  with  very  little  to  do ;  a  kind 
of  grand  chamberlains  with  wings,  who  fly  down  to 
earth  and  communicate  information  to  Adam  and 
Eve.  They  have  no  character:  they  are  essentially 

*  Imitation  of  Horace's  Epistle  to  Augustus,  Book  ii.,  Ep.  i. 


JOHN   MILTON.  345 


messengers,  —  merely  conductors,  so  to  say,  of  the 
Providential  will;  no  one  fancies  that  they  have  an 
independent  power  of  action;  they  seem  scarcely  to 
have  minds  of  their  own.  No  effect  can  be  more  un- 
fortunate. If  the  struggle  of  Satan  had  been  with 
Deity  directly,  the  natural  instincts  of  religion  would 
have  been  awakened ;  but  when  an  angel  possessed 
of  mind  is  contrasted  with  angels  possessed  only  of 
wings,  we  sympathize  with  the  former. 

In  the  first  two  books,  therefore,  our  sympathy 
with  Milton's  Satan  is  great;  we  had  almost  said  un- 
qualified. The  speeches  he  delivers  are  of  well-known 
excellence.  Lord  Brougham,  no  contemptible  judge  of 
emphatic  oratory,  has  laid  down  that  if  a  person  had 
not  an  opportunity  of  access  to  the  great  Attic  mas- 
terpieces, he  had  better  choose  these  for  a  model. 
What  is  to  be  regretted  about  the  orator  is,  that  he 
scarcely  acts  up  to  his  sentiments.  "Better  to  reign 
in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven"  is  at  any  rate  an  auda- 
cious declaration ;  but  he  has  no  room  for  exhibiting 
similar  audacity  in  action.  His  offensive  career  is  lim- 
ited ;  in  the  nature  of  the  subject,  there  was  scarcely 
any  opportunity  for  the  fallen  archangel  to  display 
in  the  detail  of  his  operations  the  surpassing  intellect 
with  which  Milton  has  endowed  him.  He  goes  across 
chaos,  gets  into  a  few  physical  difficulties;  but  these 
are  not  much.  His  grand  aim  is  the  conquest  of 
our  first  parents;  and  we  are  at  once  struck  with  the 
enormous  inequality  of  the  conflict.  Two  beings  just 
created,  without  experience,  without  guile,  without 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  are  expected  to  contend 
with  a  being  on  the  delineation  of  whose  powers 
every  resource  of  art  and  imagination,  every  subtle 
suggestion,  every  emphatic  simile  has  been  lavished. 
The  idea  in  every  reader's  mind  is,  and  must  be, 
not  surprise  that  our  first  parents  should  yield,  but 
wonder  that  Satan  should  not  think  it  beneath  him 
to  attack  them.  It  is  as  if  an  army  should  invest  a 
cottage. 


346  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

We  have  spoken  more  of  theology  than  we  in- 
tended; and  we  need  not  say  how  much  the  mon- 
strous inequalities  attributed  to  the  combatants  affect 
our  estimate  of  the  results  of  the  conflict.  The  state 
of  man  is  what  it  is,  because  the  defenseless  Adam 
and  Eve  of  Milton's  imagination  yielded  to  the  nearly 
all-powerful  Satan  whom  he  has  delineated.  Milton 
has  in  some  sense  invented  this  difficulty ;  for  in  the 
book  of  Genesis  there  is  no  such  inequality.  The 
serpent  may  be  subtler  than  any  beast  of  the  field; 
but  he  is  not  necessarily  subtler  or  cleverer  than 
man.  So  far  from  Milton  having  justified  the  ways 
of  God  to  man,  he  has  loaded  the  common  theology 
with  a  new  incumbrance. 

We  may  need  refreshment  after  this  discussion ; 
and  we  cannot  find  it  better  than  in  reading  a  few 
remarks  of  Eve:  — 

' '  That  day  I  oft  remember,  when  from  sleep 
I  first  awaked,  and  found  myself  reposed 
Under  a  shade  on  flowers,  much  wondering  where 
And  what  I  was,  whence  thither  brought,  and  how. 
Not  distant  far  from  thence  a  murmuring  sound 
Of  waters  issued  from  a  cave,  and  spread 
Into  a  liquid  plain,  then  stood  unmoved 
Pure  as  th'  expanse  of  heaven ;  I  thither  went 
With  unexperienced  thought,  and  laid  me  down 
On  the  green  bank,  to  look  into  the  clear 
Smooth  lake,  that  to  me  seemed  another  sky. 
As  I  bent  down  to  look,  just  opposite 
A  shape  within  the  watery  gleam  appeared, 
Bending  to  look  on  me.     I  started  back, 
It  started  back :  but  pleased  I  soon  returned ; 
Pleased  it  returned,  as  soon  with  answering  looks 
Of  sympathy  and  love.     There  I  had  fixed 
Mine  eyes  till  now,  and  pined  with  vain  desire, 
Had  not  a  voice  thus  warned  me: — 'What  thou  seest, 
What  there  thou  seest,  fair  creature,  is  thyself ; 
With  thee  it  came  and  goes :  but  follow  me, 
And  I  will  bring  thee  where  no  shadow  stays 
Thy  coming,  and  thy  soft  embraces ;  he 
Whose  image  thou  art,  him  thou  shalt  enjoy 


JOHN  MILTON.  347 


Inseparably  thine ;  to  him  shalt  bear 

Multitudes  like  thyself,  and  thence  be  called 

Mother  of  human  race.'    What  could  I  do 

But  follow  straight,  invisibly  thus  led? 

Till  I  espied  thee,  fair  indeed  and  tall, 

Under  a  platan ;  yet  methought  less  fair, 

Less  winning  soft,  less  amiably  mild, 

Than  that  smooth  watery  image.     Back  I  turned ; 

Thou  following  criedst  aloud,  '  Keturn,  fair  Eve  : 

"Whom  fly'st  thou?'"* 

Eve's  character,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
efforts  of  the  human  imagination.  She  is  a  kind  of 
abstract  woman ;  essentially  a  typical  being ;  an  offi- 
cial "mother  of  all  living."  Yet  she  is  a  real  inter- 
esting woman,  not  only  full  of  delicacy  and  sweetness, 
but  with  all  the  undefinable  fascination,  the  charm  of 
personality,  which  such  typical  characters  hardly  ever 
have.  By  what  consummate  miracle  of  wit  this  charm 
of  individuality  is  preserved,  without  impairing  the 
general  idea  which  is  ever  present  to  us,  we  cannot 
explain,  for  we  do  not  know. 

Adam  is  far  less  successful.  He  has  good  hair, — 
"hyacinthine  locks"  that  "from  his  parted  forelock 
manly  hung";  a  "fair  large  front"  and  "eye  sub- 
lime": but  he  has  little  else  that  we  care  for.  There 
is,  in  truth,  no  opportunity  of  displaying  manly  vir- 
tues, even  if  he  possessed  them.  He  has  only  to  yield 
to  his  wife's  solicitations,  which  he  does.  Nor  are  we 
sure  that  he  does  it  well :  he  is  very  tedious.  He  in- 
dulges in  sermons  which  are  good ;  but  most  men 
cannot  but  fear  that  so  delightful  a  being  as  Eve 
must  have  found  him  tiresome.  She  steps  away, 
however,  and  goes  to  sleep  at  some  of  the  worst 
points. 

Dr.  Johnson  remarked  that  after  all,  "Paradise 
Lost"  was  one  of  the  books  which  no  one  wished 
longer :  we  fear,  in  this  irreverent  generation,  some 
wish  it  shorter.  Hardly  any  reader  would  be  sorry 
if  some  portions  of  the  latter  books  had  been  spared 

*  Hook  iv. 


348  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


him.  Coleridge,  indeed,  discovered  profound  mysteries 
in  the  last;  but  in  what  could  not  Coleridge  find  a 
mystery  if  he  wished  ?  Dryden  more  wisely  remarked 
that  Milton  became  tedious  when  he  entered  upon  a 
"track  of  Scripture."*  Nor  is  it  surprising  that  such 
is  the  case.  The  style  of  many  parts  of  Scripture  is 
such  that  it  will  not  bear  addition  or  subtraction.  A 
word  less  or  an  idea  more,  and  the  effect  upon  the 
mind  is  the  same  no  longer.  Nothing  can  be  more 
tiresome  than  a  sermonic  amplification  of  such  pas- 
sages. It  is  almost  too  much  when,  as  from  the  pulpit, 
a  paraphrastic  commentary  is  prepared  for  our  spirit- 
ual improvement.  In  deference  to  the  intention,  we 
bear  it,  but  we  bear  it  unwillingly ;  and  we  cannot 
endure  it  at  all  when,  as  in  poems,  the  object  is  to 
awaken  our  fancy  rather  than  to  improve  our  con- 
duct. The  account  of  the  creation  in  the  book  of 
Genesis  is  one  of  the  compositions  from  which  110 
sensitive  imagination  would  subtract  an  iota,  to  which 
it  could  not  bear  to  add  a  word.  Milton's  paraphrase 
is  alike  copious  and  ineffective.  The  universe  is,  in 
railway  phrase,  "  opened,"  but  not  created ;  no  green 
earth  springs  in  a  moment  from  the  indefinite  void. 
Instead,  too,  of  the  simple  loneliness  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, several  angelic  officials  are  in  attendance,  who 
help  in  nothing,  but  indicate  that  heaven  must  be 
plentifully  supplied  with  tame  creatures. 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  writing  such  criticisms, 
and  indeed  other  unfavorable  criticisms,  on  "Paradise 
Lost."  There  is  scarcely  any  book  in  the  world  which 
is  open  to  a  greater  number,  or  which  a  reader  who 
allows  plain  words  to  produce  a  due  effect  will  be 
less  satisfied  with.  Yet  what  book  is  really  greater  ? 
In  the  best  parts  the  words  have  a  magic  in  them ; 
even  in  the  inferior  passages  you  are  hardly  sensible 
of  their  inferiority  till  you  translate  them  into  your 
own  language.  Perhaps  no  style  ever  written  by 
man  expressed  so  adequately  the  conceptions  of  a 
mind  so  strong  and  so  peculiar;  a  manly  strength,  a 

**' Essay  on  Satire." 


JOHN  MILTON.  349 


haunting  atmosphere  of  enhancing  suggestions,  a  firm 
continuous  music,  are  only  some  of  its  excellences. 
To  comprehend  the  whole  of  the  others,  you  must 
take  the  volume  down  and  read  it, —  the  best  defense 
of  Milton,  as  has  been  said  most  truly,  against  all 
objections. 

Probably  no  book  shows  the  transition  which  our 
theology  has  made  since  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  at  once  so  plainly  and  so  fully.  We  do  not 
now  compose  long  narratives  to  "justify  the  ways  of 
God  to  men."  The  more  orthodox  we  are,  the  more 
we  shrink  from  it,  the  more  we  hesitate  at  such  a 
task,  the  more  we  allege  that  we  have  no  powers  for 
it.  Our  most  celebrated  defenses  of  established  tenets 
are  in  the  style  of  Butler,  not  in  that  of  Milton.  They 
do  not  profess  to  show  a  satisfactory  explanation  of 
human  destiny :  on  the  contrary,  they  hint  that  prob- 
ably we  could  not  understand  such  an  explanation  if 
it  were  given  us ;  at  any  rate,  they  allow  that  it  is 
not  given  us.  Their  course  is  palliative :  they  sug- 
gest an  "analogy  of  difficulties'';  if  our  minds  were 
greater,  so  they  reason,  we  should  comprehend  these 
doctrines, — now  we  cannot  explain  analogous  facts 
which  we  see  and  know.  No  style  can  be  more  op- 
posite to  the  bold  argument,  the  boastful  exposition 
of  Milton.  The  teaching  of  the  eighteenth  century  is 
in  the  very  atmosphere  we  breathe :  we  read  it  in 
the  teachings  of  Oxford ;  we  hear  it  from  the  mission- 
aries of  the  Vatican.  The  air  of  the  theology  is  clari- 
fied. We  know  our  difficulties,  at  least :  we  are  rather 
prone  to  exaggerate  the  weight  of  some  than  to  deny 
the  reality  of  any. 

We  cannot  continue  a  line  of  thought  which  would 
draw  us  on  too  far  for  the  patience  of  our  readers. 
We  must,  however,  make  one  more  remark,  and  we 
shall  have  finished  our  criticism  on  "Paradise  Lost." 
It  is  analogous  to  that  which  we  have  just  made. 
The  scheme  of  the  poem  is  based  on  an  offense 
against  positive  morality.  The  offense  of  Adam  was 


350  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

not  against  nature  or  conscience,  nor  against  any- 
thing of  which  we  can  see  the  reason  or  conceive 
the  obligation,  but  against  an  unexplained  injunction 
of  the  Supreme  Will.  The  rebellion  in  heaven,  as 
Milton  describes  it,  was  a  rebellion  not  against  known 
ethics  or  immutable  spiritual  laws,  but  against  an 
arbitrary  selection  and  an  unexplained  edict.  We  do 
not  say  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  positive  moral- 
ity,— we  do  not  think  so;  even  if  we  did,  we  should 
not  insert  a  proposition  so  startling  at  the  conclusion 
of  a  literary  criticism.  But  we  are  sure  that  wherever 
a  positive  moral  edict  is  promulgated,  it  is  no  subject, 
except  perhaps  under  a  very  peculiar  treatment,  for 
literary  art.  By  the  very  nature  of  it,  it  cannot  satisfy 
the  heart  and  conscience.  It  is  a  difficulty ;  we  need 
not  attempt  to  explain  it  away, —  there  are  mysteries 
enough  which  will  never  be  explained  away.  But  it 
is  contrary  to  every  principle  of  criticism  to  state  the 
difficulty  as  if  it  were  not  one;  to  bring  forward  the 
puzzle,  yet  leave  it  to  itself;  to  publish  so  strange  a 
problem,  and  give  only  an  untrue  solution  of  it :  and 
yet  such,  in  its  bare  statement,  is  all  that  Milton  has 
done. 

Of  Milton's  other  writings  we  have  left  ourselves 
no  room  to  speak ;  and  though  every  one  of  them,  or 
almost  every  one  of  them,  would  well  repay  a  careful 
criticism,  yet  few  of  them  seem  to  throw  much  addi- 
tional light  on  his  character,  or  add  much  to  our 
essential  notion  of  his  genius,  though  they  may  ex- 
emplify and  enhance  it.  "Comus"  is  the  poem  which 
does  so  the  most.  Literature  has  become  so  much 
lighter  than  it  used  to  be,  that  we  can  scarcely  realize 
the  position  it  occupied  in  the  light  literature  of  our 
forefathers.  We  have  now  in  our  own  language 
many  poems  that  'are  pleasanter  in  their  subject, 
more  graceful  in  their  execution,  more  flowing  in 
their  outline,  more  easy  to  read.  Dr.  Johnson,  though 
perhaps  no  very  excellent  authority  on  the  more  in- 
tangible graces  of  literature,  was  disposed  to  deny  to 


JOHN  MILTON.  351 


Milton  the  capacity  of  creating  the  lighter  literature : 
"  Milton,  madam,  was  a  genius  that  could  cut  a  colos- 
sus from  a  rock,  but  could  not  carve  heads  upon 
cherry-stones."  And  it  would  not  be  surprising  if 
this  generation,  which  has  access  to  the  almost  in- 
finite quantity  of  lighter  compositions  which  have 
been  produced  since  Johnson's  time,  were  to  echo,  his 
sentence.  In  some  degree,  perhaps,  the  popular  taste 
does  so.  "Comus"  has  no  longer  the  peculiar  excep- 
tional popularity  which  it  used  to  have :  we  can  talk 
without  general  odium  of  its  defects ;  its  characters 
are  nothing,  its  sentiments  are  tedious,  its  story  is  not 
interesting.  But  it  is  only  when  we  have  realized 
the  magnitude  of  its  deficiencies  that  we  comprehend 
the  peculiarity  of  its  greatness.  Its  power  is  in  its 
style.  A  grave  and  firm  music  pervades  it ;  it  is  soft, 
without  a  thought  of  weakness ;  harmonious  and  yet 
strong ;  impressive  as  few  such  poems  are,  yet  covered 
with  a  bloom  of  beauty  and  a  complexity  of  charm 
that  few  poems  have  either.  We  have  perhaps  light 
literature  in  itself  better,  that  we  read  oftener  and 
more  easily,  that  lingers  more  in  our  memories ;  but 
we  have  not  any,  we  question  if  there  ever  will  be 
any,  which  gives  so  true  a  conception  of  the  capacity 
and  the  dignity  of  the  mind  by  which  it  was  pro- 
duced. The  breath  of  solemnity  which  hovers  round 
the  music  attaches  us  to  the  writer.  Every  line,  here 
as  elsewhere,  in  Milton  excites  the  idea  of  indefinite 
power. 

And  so  we  must  draw  to  a  close.  The  subject  is 
an  infinite  one,  and  if  we  pursued  it,  we  should  lose 
ourselves  in  miscellaneous  commentary,  and  run  on 
far  beyond  the  patience  of  our  readers.  What  we 
have  said  has  at  least  a  defined  intention :  we  have 
wished  to  state  the  impression  which  the  character 
of  Milton  and  the  greatest  of  Milton's  works  are  likely 
to  produce  on  readers  of  the  present  generation,  —  a 
generation  different  from  his  own  almost  more  than 
any  other. 


LADY  MARY  WOETLEY  MONTAGU* 
(1862.) 

[All  the  uncredited  quotations  in  this  essay  are  from  Lady  Louisa  Stuart's 
"Anecdotes"  or  the  other  introductory  matter  in  the  edition  reviewed. —  ED.] 

NOTHING  is  so  transitory  as  second-class  fame.  The 
name  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  is  hardly  now 
known  to  the  great  mass  of  ordinary  English  read- 
ers :  a  generation  has  arisen  which  has  had  time  to 
forget  her.  Yet  only  a  few  years  since,  an  allusion 
to  the  "  Lady  Mary "  would  have  been  easily  under- 
stood by  every  well-informed  person ;  young  ladies 
were  enjoined  to  form  their  style  upon  hers  ;  and  no 
one  could  have  anticipated  that  her  letters  would 
seem  in  1862  as  different  from  what  a  lady  of  rank 
would  then  write  or  publish  as  if  they  had  been 
written  in  the  times  of  paganism.  The  very  change, 
however,  of  popular  taste  and  popular  morality  gives 
these  letters  now  a  kind  of  interest.  The  farther  and 
the  more  rapidly  we  have  drifted  from  where  we 
once  lay,  the  more  do  we  wish  to  learn  what  kind  of 
port  it  was.  We  venture,  therefore,  to  recommend 
the  letters  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  as  an 
instructive  and  profitable  study,  —  not  indeed  to  the 
youngest  of  young  ladies,  but  to  those  maturer  per- 
sons of  either  sex  who  "have  taken  all  knowledge 
to  be  their  province,"  f  and  who  have  commenced 
their  readings  in  "universality"  by  an  assiduous 
perusal  of  Parisian  fiction. 


*The  Letters  and  Works  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  Edited  by 
her  Great-grandson,  Lord  Wharncliffe.  Third  Edition,  with  Additions  and 
Corrections  derived  from  the  Original  Manuscripts,  Illustrative  Notes,  and  a 
New  Memoir.  By  W.  Moy  Thomas.  In  two  volumes.  London  :  Henry  Bohn. 

t  Bacon,  letter  to  Lord  Burleigh. 

(352) 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  353 

It  is,  we  admit,  true  that  these  letters  are  not  at 
the  present  day  very  agreeable  reading.  What  our 
grandfathers  and  grandmothers  thought  of  them  it 
is  not  so  easy  to  say.  But  it  now  seems  clear  that 
Lady  Mary  was  that  most  miserable  of  human  beings, 
an  ambitious  and  wasted  woman :  that  she  brought 
a  very  cultivated  intellect  into  a  very  cultivated  soci- 
ety; that  she  gave  to  that  society  what  it  was  most 
anxious  to  receive,  and  received  from  it  all  which  it 
had  to  bestow, —  and  yet  that  this  all  was  to  her  as 
nothing.  The  high  intellectual  world  of  England  has 
never  been  so  compact,  so  visible  in  a  certain  sense, 
so  enjoyable,  as  it  was  in  her  time ;  she  had  a  mind 
to  understand  it,  beauty  to  adorn  it,  and  wit  to  amuse 
it :  but  she  chose  to  pass  a  great  part  of  her  life  in 
exile,  and  returned  at  last  to  die  at  home  among 
a  new  generation,  whose  name[s]  she  hardly  knew, 
and  to  whom  she  herself  was  but  a  spectacle  and  a 
wonder. 

Lady  Mary  Pierrepont  —  for  that  was  by  birth  her 
name  —  belonged  to  a  family  which  had  a  traditional 
reputation  for  ability  and  cultivation.  The  "  Memoirs 
of  Lucy  Hutchinson" — almost  the  only  legacy  that 
remains  to  us  from  the  first  generation  of  refined 
Puritans ;  the  only  book,  at  any  rate,  which  effectually 
brings  home  to  us  how  different  they  were  in  taste 
and  in  temper  from  their  more  vulgar  and  feeble 
successors  —  contains  a  curious  panegyric  on  wise 
William  Pierrepont,  to  whom  the  Parliamentary  party 
resorted  as  an  oracle  of  judgment,  and  whom  Crom- 
well himself,  if  tradition  may  be  trusted,  at  times 
condescended  to  "consult  and  court."  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, transmit  much  of  his  discretion  to  his  grandson, 
Lady  Mary's  father.  This  nobleman  —  for  he  inherited 
from  an  elder  branch  of  the  family  both  the  marquis- 
ate  of  Dorchester  and  the  dukedom  of  Kingston  — 
was  a  mere  "man  about  town,"  as  the  homely  phrase 
then  went,  who  passed  a  long  life  of  fashionable  idle- 
ness interspersed  with  political  intrigue,  and  who  sig- 
nalized his  old  age  by  marrying  a  young  beauty  of 
VOL.  I. —23 


354  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

fewer  years  than  his  youngest  daughter,  who  (as  he 
very  likely  knew)  cared  nothing  for  him  and  much 
for  another"  person.  He  had  the  "grand  air,"  how- 
ever, and  he  expected  his  children,  when  he  visited 
them,  to  kneel  down  immediately  and  ask  his  bless- 
ing,—  which,  if  his  character  was  what  is  said,  must 
have  been  very  valuable.  The  only  attention  he  ever 
(that  we  know  of)  bestowed  upon  Lady  Mary  was  a 
sort  of  theatrical  outrage,  pleasant  enough  to  her  at 
the  time,  but  scarcely  in  accordance  with  the  educa- 
tional theories  in  which  we  now  believe.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  Kit-Cat, —  a  great  Whig  club,  the 
Brooks's  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  which  like  Brooks's 
appears  not  to  have  been  purely  political,  but  to  have 
found  time  for  occasional  relaxation  and  for  some- 
what unbusinesslike  discussions.  They  held  annually 
a  formal  meeting  to  arrange  the  female  toasts  for 
that  year;  and  we  are  told  that  "a  whim  seized"  her 
father  "to  nominate"  Lady  Mary,  "then  not  eight 
years  old,  a  candidate,  alleging  that  she  was  far  pret- 
tier than  any  lady  on  their  list.  The  other  members 
demurred,  because  the  rules  of  the  club  forbade  them 
to  elect  a  beauty  whom  they  had  never  seen.  'Then 
you  shall  see  her,'  cried  he;  and  in  the  gayety  of 
the  moment  sent  orders  home  to  have  her  finely 
dressed  and  brought  to  him  at  the  tavern,  where 
she  was  received  with  acclamations,  her  claim  unan- 
imously allowed,  her  health  drunk  by  every  one  pres- 
ent, and  her  name  engraved  in  due  form  upon  a 
drinking-glass.  The  company  consisting  of  some  of 
the  most  eminent  men  in  England,  she  went  from 
the  lap  of  one  poet  or  patriot  or  statesman  to  the 
arms  of  another,  was  feasted  with  sweetmeats,  over- 
whelmed with  caresses,  and  —  what  perhaps  already 
pleased  her  better  than  either  —  heard  her  wit  and 
beauty  loudly  extolled  on  every  side.  Pleasure,  she 
said,  was  too  poor  a  word  to  express  her  sensations, 
—  they  amounted  to  ecstasy;  never  again,  throughout 
her  whole  future  life,  did  she  pass  so  happy  a  day. 
Nor,  indeed,  could  she;  for  the  love  of  admiration, 


LADY  MARY  TVORTLEY  MONTAGU.  355 

which  this  scene  was  calculated  to  excite  or  increase, 
could  never  again  be  so  fully  gratified :  there  is 
always  some  allaying  ingredient  in  the  cup,  some 
drawback  upon  the  triumphs,  of  grown  people.  Her 
father  carried  on  the  frolic,  and  (we  may  conclude) 
confirmed  the  taste,  by  having  her  picture  painted 
for  the  club-room,  that  she  might  be  enrolled  a  regu- 
lar toast."*  Perhaps  some  young  ladies  of  more  than 
eight  years  old  would  not  much  object  to  have  lived 
in  those  times.  Fathers  may  be  wiser  now  than  they 
were  then,  but  they  rarely  make  themselves  so  thor- 
oughly agreeable  to  their  children. 

This  stimulating  education  would  leave  a  weak 
and  vain  girl  still  more  vain  and  weak ;  but  it  had 
not  that  effect  on  Lady  Mary.  Vain  she  probably 
was,  and  her  father's  boastfulness  perhaps  made  her 
vainer;  but  her  vanity  took  an  intellectual  turn.  She 
read  vaguely  and  widely;  she  managed  to  acquire 
some  knowledge  —  how  much  is  not  clear  —  of  Greek 
and  Latin,  and  certainly  learned  with  sufficient  thor- 
oughness French  and  Italian.  She  used  to  say  that 
she  had  "one  of  the  worst  [educations]  in  the  world," 
and  that  it  was  only  by  the  "help  of  an  uncommon 
memory  and  indefatigable  labor"  that  she  had  ac- 
quired her  remarkable  attainments.  Her  father  cer- 
tainly seems  to  have  been  capable  of  any  degree  of 
inattention  and  neglect;  but  we  should  not  perhaps 
credit  too  entirely  all  the  legends  which  an  old  lady 
recounted  to  her  grandchildren  of  the  intellectual 
difficulties  of  her  youth. 

She  seems  to  have  been  encouraged  by  her  grand- 
mother, one  of  the  celebrated  Evelyn  family,  whose 
memory  is  thus  enigmatically  but  still  expressively 
enshrined  in  the  "Diary"  of  the  author  of  "Sylva":  — 
"Under  the  date,"  we  are  informed,  "of  the  2d  of 
July,  1640,  he  records  a  day  spent  at  Godstone,  where 
Sir  John"  (this  lady's  father)  "was  on  a  visit  with 

*  By  a  curious  blunder,  nearly  all  this  extract  has  been  hitherto  printed 
without  quotation  marks,  as  Bagehot's  own  words.  —  ED. 


356        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

this  daughter,  and  he  adds  :  '  Mem.  —  The  prodigious 
memory  of  Sir  John  of  Wilts's  daughter,  since  mar- 
ried to  Mr.  W.*  Pierrepont.'"  The  lady  who  was 
.thus  formidable  in  her  youth  deigned  in  her  old  age 
to  write  frequently,  as  we  should  now  say,  [to]  —  to 
open  a  ' '  regular  commerce "  of  letters,  as  was  said  in 
that  age,  with  —  Lady  Mary  when  quite  a  girl,  which 
she  always  believed  to  have  been  beneficial  to  her, 
and  probably  believed  rightly;  for  she  was  intelli- 
gent enough  to  comprehend  what  was  said  to  her,  and 
the  old  lady  had  watched  many  changes  in  many 
things. 

Her  greatest  intellectual  guide,  at  least  so  in  after 
life  she  used  to  relate,  was  Mr.  Wortley,  whom  she 
afterwards  married.  "When  I  was  young,"  she  said, 
"I  was  a  great  admirer  of  Ovid's  'Metamorphoses,' 
and  that  was  one  of  the  chief  reasons  that  set  me 
upon  the  thoughts  of  stealing  the  Latin  language. 
Mr.  Wortley  was  the  only  person  to  whom  I  commu- 
nicated my  design,  and  he  encouraged  me  in  it.  I 
used  to  study  five  or  six  hours  a  day  for  two  years 
in  my  father's  library;  and  so  got  that  language, 
whilst  everybody  else  thought  I  was  reading  nothing 
but  novels  and  romances."  She  perused,  however, 
some  fiction  also;  for  she  possessed  till  her  death  "the 
whole  library  of  Mrs.  Lennox's  '  Female  Quixote,'  "  a 
ponderous  series  of  novels  in  folio,  in  one  of  which 
she  "had  written  in  her  fairest  youthful  hand  the 
names  and  characteristic  qualities  of  ...  the  beauti- 
ful Diana,  the  volatile  Climene,  the  melancholy  Doris, 
Celadon  the  faithful,  Adamas  the  wise,  and  so  on, 
forming  two  long  columns."  f 

*A  mistake  for  "R."— ED. 

t  This  is  a  curious  tangle  of  blunders,  partly  copied  from  Lady  Louisa 
Stuart  (whose  seeming  error  in  the  original  is  probably  caused  by  wrong 
punctuation)  and  partly  gratuitous.  Mrs.  Lennox's  "Female  Quixote"  was 
not  itself  the  "library":  it  formed  only  two  volumes  of  the  "ponderous 
series  of  novels"  (which  were  not  folios,  but  quartos  and  octavos),  the 
remainder  comprising  translations  of  Mme.  de  Scuderi,  Calprenede,  D'Urfe, 
etc., —  the  "  Astraea"  of  which  last-named  author  was  the  romance  annotated 
as  here  described.  —  ED. 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  357 

Of  Mr.  Wortley's  character  it  is  not  difficult,  from 
the  materials  before  us,  to  decipher  the  features :  he 
was  a  slow  man  with  a  taste  for  quick  companions. 
Swift's  diary  to  Stella  mentions  an  evening  spent 
over  a  bottle  of  old  wine  with  Mr.  Wortley  and  Mr. 
Addison.  Mr.  Wortley  was  a  rigid  Whig,  and  Swift's 
transition  to  Toryism  soon  broke  short  that  friend- 
ship ;  but  with  Addison  he  maintained  an  intimacy 
which  lasted  during  their  joint  lives,  and  survived 
the  marriages  of  both.  With  Steele  likewise  he  was 
upon  the  closest  terms ;  is  said  to  have  written  some 
papers  in  the  Tatler  and  Spectator,  and  the  second 
volume  of  the  former  is  certainly  dedicated  to  him 
in  affectionate  and  respectful  terms. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  these  conspicuous  testi- 
monials to  high  ability,  Mr.  Wortley  was  an  orderly 
and  dull  person.  Every  letter  received  by  him  from 
his  wife,  during  five-and-twenty  years  of  absence,  was 
found  at  his  death  carefully  indorsed  with  the  date 
of  its  arrival  and  with  a  synopsis  of  its  contents. 
"He  represented,"  we  are  told,  "at  various  times, 
Huntingdon,  Westminster,  and  Peterborough  in  Par- 
liament, and  appears  to  have  been  a  member  of  that 
class  who  win  respectful  attention  by  sober  earnest- 
ness and  business  qualities;"  and  his  name  is  con- 
stantly found  in  the  drier  and  more  formal  part  of 
the  politics  of  the  time.  He  answered  to  the  de- 
scription given  more  recently  of  a  similar  person :  — 
"Is  not,"  it  was  asked,  "Sir  John  -  -  a  very  me- 
thodical person?"  "Certainly  he  is,"  was  the  reply: 
"he  files  his  invitations  to  dinner."  The  Wortley 
papers,  according  to  the  description  of  those  who 
have  inspected  them,  seem  to  contain  the  accumula- 
tions of  similar  documents  during  many  years.  He 
hoarded  money,  however,  to  more  purpose,  for  he  died 
one  of  the  richest  commoners  in  England ;  and  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  now  marvelous  wealth  of  the 
Bute  family  seems  at  first  to  have  been  derived  from 
him. 


*" Irish  wine."  — Oct.  20,  1710. 


358  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.   CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

Whatever  good  qualities  Addison  and  Steele  dis- 
covered in  Mr.  Wortley,  they  were  certainly  not  those 
of  a  good  writer.  We  have  from  his  pen  and  from 
that  of  Lady  Mary  a  description  of  the  state  of  Eng- 
lish politics  during  the  three  first  years  of  George 
L,  and  any  one  who  wishes  to  understand  how 
much  readability  depends  upon  good  writing  would 
do  well  to  compare  the  two.  Lady  Mary's  is  a  clear 
and  bright  description  of  all  the  superficial  circum- 
stances of  the  time;  Mr.  Wortley's  is  equally  super- 
ficial, often  unintelligible  and  always  lumbering,  and 
scarcely  succeeds  in  telling  us  more  than  that  the 
writer  was  wholly  unsuccessful  in  all  which  he  tried 
to  do.  As  to  Mr.  Wortley's  contributions  to  the  peri- 
odicals of  his  time,  we  may  suspect  that  the  jottings 
preserved  at  Sandon  are  all  which  he  ever  wrote  of 
them,  and  that  the  style  and  arrangement  were  sup- 
plied by  more  skillful  writers.  Even  a  county  mem- 
ber might  furnish  headings  for  the  Saturday  Review: 
he  might  say,  "'Trent'  British  vessel  —  Americans 
always  intrusive  —  Support  Government  —  Kill  all  that 
is  necessary." 

What  Lady  Mary  discovered  in  Mr.  Wortley  it  is 
easier  to  say,  and  shorter;  for  he  was  very  handsome. 
If  his  portrait  can  be  trusted,  there  was  a  placid  and 
business-like  repose  about  him  which  might  easily  be 
attractive  to  a  rather  excitable  and  wild  young  lady, 
especially  when  combined  with  imposing  features  and 
a  quiet  sweet  expression.  He  attended  to  her  also. 
When  she  was  a  girl  of  fourteen,  he  met  her  at  a 
party  and  evinced  his  admiration;  and  a  little  while 
later,  it  is  not  difficult  to  fancy  that  a  literary  young 
lady  might  be  much  pleased  with  a  good-looking 
gentleman  not  uncomfortably  older  than  herself,  yet 
having  a  place  in  the  world,  and  well  known  to  the 
literary  men  of  the  age.  He  was  acquainted  with  the 
classics  too,  or  was  supposed  to  be  so;  and  whether 
it  was  a  consequence  of  or  a  preliminary  to  their  af- 
fections, Lady  Mary  wished  to  know  the  classics  also. 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  359 

Bishop  Burnet  was  so  kind  as  to  superintend  the 
singular  studies  —  for  such  they  were  clearly  thought 
—  of  this  aristocratic  young  lady ;  and  the  translation 
of  the  "Enchiridion"  of  Epictetus,  which  he  revised, 
is  printed  in  this  edition  of  her  works.  But  even  so 
grave  an  undertaking  could  not  wholly  withdraw  her 
from  more  congenial  pursuits.  She  commenced  a 
correspondence  with  Miss  Wortley,  Mr.  Wortley's  un- 
married sister,  which  still  remains  ;  though  Miss  Wort- 
ley's  letters  are  hardly  to  be  called  hers,  for  her 
brother  composed  and  she  merely  copied  them.  The 
correspondence  is  scarcely  in  the  sort  of  English  or 
in  the  tone  which  young  ladies,  we  understand,  now 
use. 

"It  is  as  impossible,"  says  Miss  Wortley,  "for  my  dearest  Lady 
Mary  to  utter  a  thought  that  can  seem  dull  as  to  put  on  a  look  that 
is  not  beautiful.  Want  of  wit  is  a  fault  that  those  who  envy  you 
most  would  not  be  able  to  find  in  your  kind  compliments.  To  me 
they  seem  perfect,  since  repeated  assurances  of  your  kindness  forbid 
me  to  question  their  sincerity.  You  have  often  found  that  the 
most  angry,  nay,  the  most  neglectful  air  you  can  assume,  has  made 
as  deep  a  wound  as  the  kindest ;  and  these  lines  of  yours,  that  you 
tax  with  dullness  (perhaps  because  they  were  writ  when  you  was 
not  in  a  right  humor,  or  when  your  thoughts  were  elsewhere  em- 
ployed), are  so  far  from  deserving  the  imputation,  that  the  very 
turn  of  your  expression,  had  I  forgot  the  rest  of  your  charms, 
would  be  sufficient  to  make  me  lament  the  only  fault  you  have, — 
your  inconstancy." 

To  which  the  reply  is:  — 

"I  am  infinitely  obliged  to  you,  my  dear  Mrs.*  Wortley,  for  the 
wit,  beauty,  and  other  fine  qualities  you  so  generously  bestow  upon 
me.  Next  to  receiving  them  from  Heaven,  you  are  the  person  from 

*  "  In  the  phraseology  of  those  days,  J/ww,  which  had  hardly  yet  ceased 
to  be  a  term  of  reproach,  still  denoted  childishness,  flippancy,  or  some  other 
contemptible  quality,  and  was  rarely  applied  to  youug  ladies  of  a  respect- 
able class.  In  Steele's  Guardian,  the  youngest  of  Nestor  Ironside's  wards, 
aged  fifteen,  is  Mrs.  Mary  Lizard.  Nay,  Lady  Bute  herself  could  remember 
having  been  styled  '  Mrs.  Wortley '  when  a  child,  by  two  or  three  elderly 
visitors,  as  tenacious  of  their  ancient  modes  of  speech  as  of  other  old  fash- 
Ions." —  Lady  Louixa  tituarVs  '''•Anecdotes.'1''  Scott  used  this  form  as  late  as 
Ib26,  in  "Woodstock";  and  "Miss"  by  itself  carries  a  slur  even  yet.  —  ED. 


360  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

whom  I  would  choose  to  receive  gifts  and  graces:  I  am  very  well 
satisfied  to  owe  them  to  your  own  delicacy  of  imagination,  which 
represents  to  you  the  idea  of  a  fine  lady,  and  you  have  good  nature 
enough  to  fancy  I  am  she.  All  this  is  mighty  well,  but  you  do  not 
stop  there ;  imagination  is  boundless.  After  giving  me  imaginary 
wit  and  beauty,  you  give  me  imaginary  passions,  and  you  tell  me 
I'm  in  love :  if  I  am,  'tis  a  perfect  sin  of  ignorance,  for  I  don't  so 
much  as  know  the  man's  name;  I  have  been  studying  these  three 
hours,  and  cannot  guess  who  you  mean.  I  passed  the  days  of  Not- 
tingham races  [at]  Thoresby  without  seeing,  or  even  wishing  to  see, 
one  of  the  sex.  Now,  if  I  am  in  love,  I  have  very  hard  fortune  to 
conceal  it  so  industriously  from  my  own  knowledge,  and  yet  dis- 
cover it  so  much  to  other  people.  'Tis  against  all  form  to  have 
such  a  passion  as  that,  without  giving  one  sigh  for  the  matter. 
Pray  tell  me  the  name  of  him  I  love,  that  I  may  (according  to  the 
laudable  custom  of  lovers)  sigh  to  the  woods  and  groves  hereabouts, 
and  teach  it  to  the  echo." 

After  some  time  Miss  Wortley  unfortunately  died, 
and  there  was  an  obvious  difficulty  in  continuing  the 
correspondence  without  the  aid  of  an  appropriate  sis- 
terly screen.  Mr.  Wortley  seems  to  have  been  tran- 
quil and  condescending;  perhaps  he  thought  placid 
tactics  would  be  most  effective,  for  Lady  Mary  was 
not  so  calm.  He  sent  her  some  Tatlers,  and  received 
by  way  of  thanks  the  following  tolerably  encouraging 
letter:  — 

"I  am  surprised  at  one  of  the  Tatlers  you  send  me:  is  it  possi- 
ble to  have  any  sort  of  esteem  for  a  person  one  believes  capable  of 
having  such  trifling  inclinations?  Mr.  Bickerstaff  has  very  wrong 
notions  of  our  sex.  I  can  say  there  are  some  of  us  that  despise 
charms  of  show,  and  all  the  pageantry  of  greatness,  perhaps  with 
more  ease  than  any  of  the  philosophers.  In  contemning  the  world, 
they  seem  to  take  pains  to  contemn  it :  we  despise  it,  without  tak- 
ing the  pains  to  read  lessons  of  morality  to  make  us  do  it.  At 
least  I  know  I  have  always  looked  upon  it  with  contempt,  without 
being  at  the  expense  of  one  serious  reflection  to  oblige  me  to  it.  I 
carry  the  matter  yet  farther :  was  I  to  choose  of  two  thousand 
pounds  a  year  or  twenty  thousand,  the  first  would  be  my  choice. 
There  is  something  of  an  unavoidable  embarras  in  making  what  is 
called  a  great  figure  in  the  world :  [it]  takes  off  from  the  happiness 
of  Me;  I  hate  the  noise  and  hurry  inseparable  from  great  estates 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  361 

and  titles,  and  look  upon  both  as  blessings  that  ought  only  to  be 
given  to  fools,  for  'tis  only  to  them  that  they  are  blessings.  The 
pretty  fellows  you  speak  of,  I  own  entertain  me  sometimes ;  but  is 
it  impossible  to  be  diverted  with  what  one  despises?  I  can  laugh 
at  a  puppet-show ;  at  the  same  time  I  know  there  is  nothing  in  it 
worth  my  attention  or  regard.  General  notions  are  generally  wrong. 
Ignorance  and  folly  are  thought  the  best  foundations  for  virtue,  as 
if  not  knowing  what  a  good  wife  is  was  necessary  to  make  one  so. 
I  confess  that  can  never  be  my  way  of  reasoning:  as  I  always  for- 
give an  injury  when  I  think  it  not  done  out  of  malice,  I  can  never 
think  myself  obliged  by  what  is  done  without  design.  Give  me 
leave  to  say  it  (I  know  it  sounds  vain),  I  know  how  to  make  a 
man  of  sense  happy ;  but  then  that  man  must  resolve  to  contribute 
something  towards  it  himself.  I  have  so  much  esteem  for  yon,  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  hear  you  was  unhappy ;  but  for  the  world 
I  would  not  be  the  instrument'  of  making  you  so,  which  (of  the 
humor  you  are)  is  hardly  to  be  avoided  if  I  am  your  wife.  You 
distrust  me :  I  can  neither  be  easy,  nor  loved,  where  I  am  distrusted. 
Nor  do  I  believe  your  passion  for  me  is  what  you  pretend  it ;  at 
least  I  am  sure  was  I  in  love  I  could  not  talk  as  you  do.  Few 
women  would  have  spoken  so  plainly  as  I  have  done ;  but  to  dis- 
semble is  among  the  things  I  never  do.  I  take  more  pains  to  ap- 
prove my  conduct  to  myself  than  to  the  world ;  and  would  not 
have  to  accuse  myself  of  a  minute's  deceit.  I  wish  I  loved  you 
enough  to.  devote  myself  to  be  forever  miserable,  for  the  pleasure 
of  a  day  or  two's  happiness.  I  cannot  resolve  upon  it.  You  must 
think  otherwise  of  me,  or  not  all. 

"I  don't  enjoin  you  to  burn  this  letter:  I  know  you  will.  'Tis 
the  first  I  ever  writ  to  one  of  your  sex,  and  shall  be  the  last.  You 
must  never  expect  another.  I  resolve  against  all  correspondence  of 
the  kind:  my  resolutions  are  seldom  made,  and  never  broken.'' 

Mr.  Wortley,  however,  still  grumbled.  He  seems 
to  have  expected  a  young  lady  to  do  something 
even  more  decisive  than  ask  him  to  marry  her :  he 
continued  to  hesitate  and  pause.  The  lady  in  the 
comedy  says,  "  What  right  has  a  man  to  intend  un- 
less he  states  his  intentions?"  and  Lady  Mary's  biog- 
raphers are  entirely  of  that  opinion, — they  think  her 
exceedingly  ill-used  and  Mr.  Wortley  exceedingly  to 
blame.  And  so  it  may  have  been ;  certainly,  a  love 
correspondence  is  rarely  found  where  activity  and 


362  THE  TRAVELEKS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

intrepidity  on  the  lady's  side  so  much  contrast  with 
quiescence  and  timidity  on  the  gentleman's.  If,  how- 
ever, we  could  summon  him  before  us,  probably  Mr. 
Wortley  would  have  something  to  answer  on  his 
own  behalf.  It  is  tolerably  plain  that  he  thought 
Lady  Mary  too  excitable.  "Certainly,"  he  doubtless 
reasoned,  "she  is  a  handsome  young  lady,  and  very 
witty ;  but  beauty  and  wit  are  dangerous  as  well  as 
attractive.  Vivacity  is  delightful;  but  my  esteemed 
friend  Mr.  Addison  has  observed  that  excessive  quick- 
ness of  parts  is  not  unfrequently  the  cause  of  extreme 
rapidity  in  action.  Lady  Mary  makes  love  to  me 
before  marriage,  and  I  like  it ;  but  may  she  not  make 
love  also  to  some  one  else  after  marriage  ?  and  then 
I  shall  not  like  it."  Accordingly  he  writes  to  her 
timorously  as  to  her  love  of  pleasure,  her  love  of 
romantic  reading,  her  occasional  toleration  of  younger 
gentlemen  and  quicker  admirers.  At  last,  however, 
he  proposed;  and  as  far  as  the  lady  was  concerned, 
there  was  no  objection. 

We  might  have  expected,  from  a  superficial  view 
of  the  facts,  that  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty 
either  on  the  side  of  her  father.  Mr.  Wortley  died 
one  of  the  richest  commoners  in  England  ;  was  of  the 
first  standing  in  society,  of  good  family,  and  he  had 
apparently,  therefore,  money  to  settle  and  station  to 
offer  to  his  bride.  And  he  did  offer  both :  he  was 
ready  to  settle  an  ample  sum  on  Lady  Mary,  both  as 
his  wife  and  as  his  widow,  and  was  anxious  that  if 
they  married,  they  should  live  in  a  manner  suitable 
to  her  rank  and  his  prospects.  But  nevertheless, 
there  was  a  difficulty.  The  Tatler  had  recently 
favored  its  readers  with  dissertations  upon  social 
ethics  not  altogether  dissimilar  to  those  with  which 
the  Saturday  Review  frequently  instructs  its  readers. 
One  of  these  dissertations*  contained  an  elaborate  ex- 
posure of  the  folly  of  settling  your  estate  upon  your 


*No.  223,  Sept.  12,  1710. 


LADY  MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  363 

unborn  children.  The  arguments  were  of  a  sort  very 
easily  imaginable.  Why,  it  was  said,  should  you 
give  away  that  which  you  have  to  a  person  whom 
you  do  not  know;  whom  you  may  never  see,  whom 
you  may  not  like  when  you  do  see ;  who  may  be  un- 
dutiful,  unpleasant,  or  idiotic  ?  Why,  too,  should  each 
generation  surrender  its  due  control  over  the  next  ? 
When  the  family  estate  is  settled,  men  of  the  world 
know  that  the  father's  control  is  gone,  for  disinter- 
ested filial  affection  is  an  unfrequent  though  doubtless 
possible  virtue ;  but  so  long  as  property  is  in  suspense, 
all  expectants  will  be  attentive  to  those  who  have 
it  in  their  power  to  give  or  not  to  give  it.  These 
arguments  had  converted  Mr.  Wortley,  who  is  said 
even  to  have  contributed  notes  for  the  article;  and 
they  seem  to  have  converted  Lady  Mary  also.  She 
was  to  have  her  money,  and  the  most  plain-spoken 
young  ladies  do  not  commonly  care  to  argue  much 
about  the  future  provision  for  their  possible  children : 
the  subject  is  always  delicate  and  a  little  frightful, 
and  on  the  whole  must  be  left  to  themselves.  But 
Lord  Dorchester,  her  father,  felt  it  his  duty  to  be 
firm.  It  is  an  old  saying,  that  "You  never  know 
where  a  man's  conscience  may  turn  up,"  and  the  ad- 
vent of  ethical  feeling  was  in  this  case  even  unusually 
beyond  calculation.  Lord  Dorchester  had  never  been 
an  anxious  father,  and  was  not  now  going  to  be  a 
liberal  father;  he  had  never  cared  much  about  Lady 
Mary,  except  in  so  far  as  he  could  himself  gain  eclat 
by  exhibiting  her  youthful  beauty,  and  he  was  not 
now  at  her  marriage  about  to  do  at  all  more  than 
was  necessary  and  decent  in  his  station :  it  was  not, 
therefore,  apparently  probable  that  he  would  be  irri- 
tatingly  obstinate  respecting  the  income  of  his  daugh- 
ter's children.  He  was  so,  however.  He  deemed  it  a 
duty  to  see  that  "his  grandchildren  never  should  be 
beggars,"  and  —  for  what  reason  does  not  so  clearly 
appear  —  wished  that  his  eldest  male  grandchild  should 
be  immensely  richer  than  all  his  other  grandchildren. 


364  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

The  old  feudal  aristocrat,  often  in  modern  Europe  so 
curiously  disguised  in  the  indifferent  exterior  of  a 
careless  man  of  the  world,  was,  as  became  him,  dicta- 
torial and  unalterable  upon  the  duty  of  founding  a 
family.  Though  he  did  not  care  much  for  his  daugh- 
ter, he  cared  much  for  the  position  of  his  daughter's 
eldest  son.  He  had  probably  stumbled  on  the  funda- 
mental truth  that  "girls  were  girls,  and  boys  were 
boys,"  and  was  disinclined  to  disregard  the  rule  of 
primogeniture  by  which  he  had  obtained  his  marquis- 
ate,  and  from  which  he  expected  a  dukedom. 

Mr.  Wortley,  however,  was  through  life  a  man,  if 
eminent  in  nothing  else,  eminent  at  least  in  obstinacy. 
He  would  not  give  up  the  doctrine  of  the  Tatter  even 
to  obtain  Lady  Mary.  The  match  was  accordingly 
abandoned,  and  Lord  Dorchester  looked  out  for  and 
found  another  gentleman  whom  he  proposed  to  make 
his  son-in-law;  for  he  believed,  according  to  the  old 
morality,  "that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  parents  to  find 
a  husband  for  a  daughter,  and  that  when  he  was 
found,  it  was  the  daughter's  duty  to  marry  him."  It 
was  as  wrong  in  her  to  attempt  to  choose  as  in  him 
to  neglect  to  seek.  Lady  Mary  was,  however,  by  no 
means  disposed  to  accept  this  passive  theory  of  female 
obligation.  She  had  sought  and  chosen;  and  to  her 
choice  she  intended  to  adhere.  The  conduct  of  Mr. 
Wortley  would  have  offended  some  ladies,  but  it  rather 
augmented  her  admiration.  She  had  exactly  that  sort 
of  irritable  intellect  which  sets  an  undue  value  on 
new  theories  of  society  and  morality,  and  is  pleased 
when  others  do  so  too.  She  thought  Mr.  Wortley  was 
quite  right  not  to  "defraud  himself  for  a  possible 
infant,"  and  admired  his  constancy  and  firmness.  She 
determined  to  risk  a  step,  as  she  herself  said,  unjusti- 
fiable to  her  own  relatives,  but  which  she  nevertheless 
believed  that  she  could  justify  to  herself:  she  decided 
on  eloping  with  Mr.  Wortley. 

Before,  however,  taking  this  audacious  leap,  she 
looked  a  little.  Though  she  did  not  object  to  the 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  365 

sacrifice  of  the  customary  inheritance  of  her  contin- 
gent son,  she  by  no  means  approved  of  sacrificing 
the  settlement  which  Mr.  Wortley  had  undertaken  at 
a  prior  period  of  the  negotiation  to  make  upon  her- 
self. And  according  to  common-sense,  she  was  un- 
doubtedly judicious.  She  was  going  from  her  father, 
and  foregoing  the  money  which  he  had  promised  her ; 
and  therefore  it  was  not  reasonable  that  by  going  to 
her  lover,  she  should  forfeit  also  the  money  which  he 
had  promised  her.  And  there  is  nothing  offensive  in 
her  mode  of  expression.  "Tis  something  odd  for  a 
woman  that  brings  nothing  to  expect  anything;  but 
after  the  way  of  my  education,  I  dare  not  pretend  to 
live  but  in  some  degree  suitable  to  it.  I  had  rather 
die  than  return  to  a  dependency  upon  relations  I  have 
disobliged.  Save  me  from  that  fear,  if  you  love  me. 
If  you  cannot,  or  think  I  ought  not  to  expect  it,  be 
sincere  and  tell  me  so.  'Tis  better  I  should  not  be 
yours  at  all,  than  for  a  short  happiness  involve  my- 
self in  ages  of  misery.  I  hope  there  will  never  be 
occasion  for  this  precaution;  but,  however,  'tis  neces- 
sary to  make  it."  But  true  and  rational  as  all  this 
seems,  perhaps  it  is  still  truer  and  still  more  rational 
to  say  that  if  a  woman  has  not  sufficient  confidence 
in  her  lover  to  elope  with  him  without  a  previous 
promise  of  a  good  settlement,  she  had  better  not  elope 
with  him  at  all.  After  all,  if  he  declines  to  make  the 
stipulated  settlement,  the  lady  will  have  either  to  re- 
turn to  her  friends  or  to  marry  without  it,  and  she 
would  have  the  full  choice  between  these  satisfactory 
alternatives  even  if  she  asked  no  previous  promise 
from  her  lover.  At  any  rate,  the  intrusion  of  coarse 
money  among  the  refined  materials  of  romance  is  in 
this  case  even  more  curious  and  remarkable  than 
usual. 

After  some  unsuccessful  attempts,  Lady  Mary  and 
Mr.  Wortley  did  elope  and  did  marry ;  and  after  a 
certain  interval,  of  course,  Lord  Dorchester  received 
them,  notwithstanding  their  contempt  of  his  authority, 


366        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

into  some  sort  of  favor  and  countenance.  .They  had 
probably  saved  him  money  by  their  irregularity,  and 
economical  frailties  are  rarely  judged  severely  by 
men  of  fashion  who  are  benefited  by  them.  Lady 
Mary,  however,  was  long  a  little  mistrusted  by  her 
own  relations,  and  never  seems  to  have  acquired 
much  family  influence;  but  her  marriage  was  not  her 
only  peculiarity,  or  the  only  one  which  impartial  re- 
lations might  dislike. 

The  pair  appear  to  have  been  for  a  little  while 
tolerably  happy.  Lady  Mary  was  excitable,  and 
wanted  letters  when  absent  and  attention  when  pres- 
ent :  Mr.  Wortley  was  heavy  and  slow,  could  not  write 
letters  when  away  and  seemed  torpid  in  her  society 
when  at  home.  Still,  these  are  common  troubles. 
Common,  too,  is  the  matrimonial  correspondence  upon 
baby's  deficiency  in  health,  and  on  Mrs.  Behn's  opin- 
ion that  "the  cold  bath  is  the  best  medicine  for  weak 
children."  It  seems  an  odd  end  to  a  deferential  pe- 
rusal of  Latin  authors  in  girlhood,  and  to  a  spirited 
elopement  with  the  preceptor  in  after  years ;  but  the 
transition  is  only  part  of  the  usual  irony  of  human 
life. 

The  world,  both  social  and  political,  into  which 
Lady  Mary  was  introduced  by  her  marriage  was  sin- 
gularly calculated  to  awaken  the  faculties,  to  stimu- 
late the  intellect,  to  sharpen  the  wit,  and  to  harden 
the  heart  of  an  intelligent,  witty,  and  hard-headed 
woman.  The  world  of  London  —  even  the  higher 
world  —  is  now  too  large  to  be  easily  seen  or  to  be 
pithily  described.  The  elements  are  so  many,  their 
position  is  so  confused,  the  display  of  their  mutual 
counteraction  is  so  involved,  that  many  years  must 
pass  away  before  even  a  very  clever  woman  can 
thoroughly  comprehend  it  all.  She  will  cease  to  be 
young  and  handsome  long  ere  she  does  comprehend 
it.  And  when  she  at  last  understands  it,  it  does  not 
seem  a  fit  subject  for  concise  and  summary  wit.  Its 
evident  complexity  refuses  to  be  condensed  into  pithy 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  367 

sayings  and  brilliant  bons-mots.  It  has  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  philosophers,  with  less  brains  perhaps 
than  the  satirists  of  our  fathers,  but  with  more  anx- 
iety to  tell  the  whole  truth,  more  toleration  for  the 
many-sidedness  of  the  world ;  with  less  of  sharp  con- 
ciseness, but  perhaps  with  more  of  useful  complete- 
ness. As  are  the  books,  so  are  the  readers.  People 
do  not  wish  to  read  satire  nowadays ;  the  epigrams 
even  of  Pope  would  fall  dull  and  dead  upon  this 
serious  and  investigating  time.  The  folly  of  the  last 
age  affected  levity :  the  folly  of  this,  as  we  all  know, 
encases  itself  in  ponderous  volumes  which  defy  refu- 
tation, in  elaborate  arguments  which  prove  nothing, 
in  theories  which  confuse  the  uninstructed  and  which 
irritate  the  well-informed.  The  folly  of  a  hundred 
years  since  was  at  least  the  folly  of  Vivien;  but  ours 
is  the  folly  of  Merlin. 

"  You  read  the  book,  my  pretty  Vivien !  .  .  . 
And  none  can  read  the  text,  not  even  I, 
And  none  can  read  the  comment  but  myself.  .  .  . 
Oh,  the  results  are  simple  !  "* 

Perhaps  people  did  not  know  then  as  much  as  they 
know  now;  indisputably  they  knew  nothing  like  so 
much  in  a  superficial  way  about  so  many  things :  but 
they  knew  far  more  correctly  where  their  knowledge 
began  and  where  it  stopped,  what  they  thought  and 
why  they  thought  it ;  they  had  readier  illustrations 
and  more  summary  phrases ;  they  could  say  at  once 
what  it  came  to,  and  to  what  action  it  should  lead. 

The  London  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  an 
aristocratic  world,  which  lived  to  itself;  which  dis- 
played the  virtues  and  developed  the  vices  of  an 
aristocracy  which  was  under  little  fear  of  external 
control  or  check ;  which  had  emancipated  itself  from 
the  control  of  the  Crown,  which  had  not  fallen  under 
the  control  of  the  bourgeoisie;  which  saw  its  own 
life,  and  saw  that  according  to  its  own  maxims  it 
was  good.  Public  opinion  now  rules ;  and  it  is  an 
opinion  which  constrains  the  conduct  and  narrows 

*  Tennyson,  "  Merlin  and  Vivien." 


368        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

the  experience  and  dwarfs  the  violence  and  mini- 
mizes the  frankness  of  the  higher  classes,  while  it 
diminishes  their  vices,  supports  their  conscience,  and 
precludes  their  grossness.  There  was  nothing  like 
this  in  the  last  century,  especially  in  the  early  part 
of  it.  The  aristocracy  came  to  town  from  their  re- 
mote estates,  —  where  they  were  uncontrolled  by  any 
opinion  or  by  any  equal  society,  and  where  the  eccen- 
tricities and  personalities  of  each  character  were  fos- 
tered and  exaggerated,  —  to  a  London  which  was  like 
a  large  county  town,  in  which  everybody  of  rank 
knew  everybody  of  rank,  where  the  eccentricities  of 
each  rural  potentate  came  into  picturesque  collision 
with  the  eccentricities  of  other  rural  potentates,  where 
the  most  minute  allusions  to  the  peculiarities  and  the 
career  of  the  principal  persons  were  instantly  under- 
stood, where  squibs  were  on  every  table  and  "where 
satire  was  in  the  air.  No  finer  field  of  social  obser- 
vation could  be  found  for  an  intelligent  and  witty 
woman.  Lady  Mary  understood  it  at  once. 

Nor  was  the  political  life  of  the  last  century  so 
unfavorable  to  the  influence  and  so  opposed  to  the 
characteristic  comprehension  of  women  as  our  present 
life.  We  are  now  ruled  by  political  discussion  and 
by  a  popular  assembly,  by  leading  articles  and  by  the 
House  of  Commons;  but  women  can  scarcely  ever 
compose  leaders,  and  no  woman  sits  in  our  represent- 
ative chamber.  The  whole  tide  of  abstract  discussion 
which  fills  our  mouths  and  deafens  our  ears,  the 
whole  complex  accumulation  of  facts  and  figures  to 
which  we  refer  everything  and  which  we  apply  to 
everything,  is  quite  unfemale.  A  lady  has  an  insight 
into  what  she  sees;  but  how  will  this  help  her  with 
the  case  of  the  "Trent,"  with  the  proper  structure 
of  a  representative  chamber,  with  Indian  finance  or 
parliamentary  reform  ?  Women  are  clever,  but  clev- 
erness of  itself  is  nothing  at  present.  A  sharp  Irish 
writer  described  himself  as  "bothered  intirely  by  the 
want  of  preliminary  information":  women  are  in  the 


LADY  MARY   WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  369 

same  difficulty  now.  Their  nature  may  hereafter 
change,  as  some  sanguine  advocates  suggest;  but  the 
visible  species  certainly  have  not  the  intellectual 
providence  to  acquire  the  vast  stores  of  dry  informa- 
tion which  alone  can  enable  them  to  judge  adequately 
of  our  present  controversies.  We  are  ruled  by  a  ma- 
chinery of  oratory  and  discussion,  in  which  women 
have  no  share  and  which  they  hardly  comprehend; 
we  are  engaged  on  subjects  which  need  an  arduous 
learning,  to  which  they  have  no  pretensions. 

In  the  last  century  much  of  this  was  very  differ- 
ent. The  court  still  counted  for  much  in  English 
politics.  The  House  of  Commons  was  the  strongest 
power  in  the  state  machine,  but  it  was  not  so  im- 
measurably the  strongest  power  as  now.  It  was  ab- 
solutely supreme  within  its  sphere,  but  that  sphere 
was  limited.  It  could  absolutely  control  the  money, 
and  thereby  the  policy,  of  the  state;  whether  there 
should  be  peace  or  war,  excise  or  no  excise,  it  could 
and  did  despotically  determine,  —  it  was  supreme  in 
its  choice  of  measures:  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  had 
only  a  secondary  influence  in  the  choice  of  persons. 
Who  the  Prime  Minister  was  to  be,  was  a  question 
not  only  theoretically  determinable,  but  in  fact  deter- 
mined, by  the  sovereign.  The  House  of  Commons 
could  despotically  impose  two  conditions :  first,  that 
the  Prime  Minister  should  be  a  man  of  sufficient  nat- 
ural ability  and  sufficient  parliamentary  experience 
to  conduct  the  business  of  his  day ;  secondly,  that  he 
should  adopt  the  policy  which  the  nation  wished :  but 
subject  to  a  conformity  with  these  prerequisites,  the 
selection  of  the  king  was  nearly  uncontrolled.  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  was  the  greatest  master  of  parlia- 
mentary tactics  and  political  business  in  his  genera- 
tion ;  he  was  a  statesman  of  wide  views  and  consum- 
mate dexterity  :  but  these  intellectual  gifts,  even  joined 
to  immense  parliamentary  experience,  were  not  alone 
sufficient  to  make  him  and  to  keep  him  Prime  Min- 
ister of  England.  He  also  maintained,  during  two 
VOL.  I.  — 24 


370        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.  S  BAGEHOT. 

reigns,  a  complete  system  of  court  strategy.  During 
the  reign  of  George  II.  he  kept  a  queen-watcher:  Lord 
Hervey,  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in  England,  —  the 
keenest  observer,  perhaps,  in  England,  — was  induced, 
by  very  dexterous  management,  to  remain  at  court 
during  many  years  to  observe  the  Queen,  to  hint  to 
the  Queen,  to  remove  wrong  impressions  from  the 
Queen,  to  confirm  the  Walpolese  predilections  of  the 
Queen,  to  report  every  incident  to  Sir  Robert.  The 
records  of  politics  tell  us  few  stranger  tales  than  that 
it  should  have  been  necessary  for  the  Sir  Robert  Peel 
of  the  age  to  hire  a  subordinate  as  safe  as  Eldon  and 
as  witty  as  Canning,  for  the  sole  purpose  of  man- 
aging a  clever  German  woman  to  whom  the  selection 
of  a  Prime  Minister  was  practically  intrusted.  Nor 
was  this  the  only  court  campaign  which  Sir  Robert 
had  to  conduct,  or  in  which  he  was  successful.  Lady 
Mary,  who  hated  him  much,  has  satirically  described 
the  foundation  upon  which  his  court  favor  rested 
during  the  reign  of  George  I.  :  — 

"The  new  court  with  all  their  train  was  arrived  before  I  left 
the  country.  The  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  returned  in  a  sort  of 
triumph,  with  the  apparent  merit  of  having  suffered  for  his  fidelity 
to  the  succession,  and  was  reinstated  in  his  office  of  general,  etc. 
In  short,  all  people  who  had  suffered  any  hardship  or  disgrace  dur- 
ing the  late  ministry  would  have  it  believed  that  it  was  occasioned 
by  their  attachment  to  the  House  of  Hanover.  Even  Mr.  "Walpole, 
who  had  been  sent  to  the  Tower  for  a  piece  of  bribery  proved  upon 
him,  was  called  a  confessor  to  the  cause.  But  he  had  another 
piece  of  good  luck  that  yet  more  contributed  to  his  advancement : 
he  had  a  very  handsome  sister, — whose  folly  had  lost  her  reputation 
in  London,*  but  the  yet  greater  folly  of  Lord  Townshend,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  a  neighbor  in  Norfolk  to  Mr.  Walpole,  had  occasioned  his 
being  drawn  in  to  marry  her  some  months  before  the  Queen  died. 


*No  better  illustration  exists  of  the  rotten-faartedness  of  tbe  time  than 
this  ancient  scandal.  Dolly  Walpole's  sole  offense  was  accepting  an  invitation 
from  her  friend  and  chaperon,  Lady  Wharton,  to  spend  a  few  days  at  tbe 
latter's  house,  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  Lord  Wharton's  character  blasted 
the  reputation  of  any  woman  he  came  near ;  but  this  virtuous  society,  where 
open  adultery  was  scarcely  even  a  matter  of  shame,  considered  this  shadowy 
taint  as  unfitting  her  for  its  circles.  —  ED. 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  371 

"Lord  Townshend  had  that  sort  of  understanding  which  com- 
monly makes  men  honest  in  the  first  part  of  their  lives :  they 
follow  the  instructions  of  their  tutor,  and  till  somebody  thinks  it 
worth  their  while  to  show  them  a  new  path,  go  regularly  on  in  the 
road  where  they  are  set.  Lord  Townshend  had  then  been  many 
years  an  excellent  husband  to  a  sober  wife,  a  kind  master  to  all  his 
servants  and  dependents,  a  serviceable  relation  wherever  it  was  in 
his  power,  and  followed  the  instinct  of  nature  in  being  fond  of  his 
children.  Such  a  sort  of  behavior,  without  any  glaring  absurdity 
either  in  prodigality  or  avarice,  always  gains  a  man  the  reputation 
of  reasonable  and  honest ;  and  this  was  his  character  when  the  Earl 
of  Godolphin  sent  him  envoy  to  the  States,  not  doubting  but  he 
would  be  faithful  to  his  orders  without  giving  himself  the  trouble 
of  criticizing  on  them,  which  is  what  all  ministers  wish  in  an  envoy. 
Robotun,  a  French  refugee  (secretary  to  Bernstoff,  one  of  the  Elector 
of  Hanover's  ministers),  happened  then  to  be  at  the  Hague,  and 
was  civilly  received  at  Lord  Townshend's,  who  treated  him  at  his 
table  with  the  English  hospitality  ;  and  he  was  charmed  with  a  recep- 
tion which  his  birth  and  education  did  not  entitle  him  to.  Lord 
Townshend  was  recalled  when  the  Queen  changed  her  ministry ;  his 
wife  died,  and  he  retired  into  the  country,  where  (as  I  have  said 
before)  Walpole  had  art  enough  to  make  him  marry  his  sister  Dolly. 
At  that  time,  I  believe,  he  did  not  propose  much  more  advantage  by 
the  match  than  to  get  rid  of  a  girl  that  lay  heavy  on  his  hands. 

"When  King  George  ascended  the  throne,  he  was  surrounded 
by  all  his  German  ministers  and  playfellows  male  and  female. 
Baron  Goritz  was  the  most  considerable  among  them  both  for  birth 
and  fortune  :  he  had  managed  the  King's  treasury  thirty  years  with 
the  utmost  fidelity  and  economy ;  and  had  the  true  German  hon- 
esty, being  a  plain,  sincere,  and  unambitious  man.  Bernstoff,  the 
secretary,  was  of  a  different  turn :  he  was  avaricious,  artful,  and 
designing,  and  had  got  his  share  in  the  King's  councils  by  bribing 
his  women.  Robotun  was  employed  in  these  matters,  and  had  the 
sanguine  ambition  of  a  Frenchman.  He  resolved  there  should  be 
an  English  ministry  of  his  choosing :  and  knowing  none  of  them  per- 
sonally but  Townshend,  he  had  not  failed  to  recommend  him  to  his 
master,  and  his  master  to  the  King,  as  the  only  proper  person  for 
the  important  post  of  Secretary  of  State  ;  and  he  entered  upon  that 
office  with  universal  applause,  having  at  that  time  a  very  popular 
character,  which  he  might  possibly  have  retained  forever  if  he  had 
not  been  entirely  governed  by  his  wife  and  her  brother  R.  Walpolo, 
whom  he  immediately  advanced  to  be  paymaster,  —  esteemed  a  post 
of  exceeding  profit,  and  very  necessary  for  his  indebted  estate."* 


*From  a  part  13-  written  history  of  her  time,  all  destroyed  but  this  scrap. 


372        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

And  it  is  indisputable  that  Lord  Townshend,  who 
thought  he  was  a  very  great  statesman,  and  who  be- 
gan as  the  patron  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  nevertheless 
was  only  his  court  agent,  —  the  manager  on  his  behalf 
of  the  king  and  of  the  king's  mistresses. 

We  need  not  point  out  at  length  —  for  the  passage 
we  have  cited  of  itself  indicates  —  how  well  suited 
this  sort  of  politics  is  to  the  comprehension  and  to 
the  pen  of  a  keen-sighted  and  witty  woman. 

Nor  was  the  court  the  principal  improver  of  the 
London  society  of  the  age :  the  House  of  Commons 
was  then  a  part  of  society.  This  separate,  isolated, 
aristocratic  world,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  had  an 
almost  undisputed  command  of  both  Houses  in  the 
Legislature.  The  letter  of  the  Constitution  did  not 
give  it  them,  and  no  law  appointed  that  it  should  be 
so.  But  the  aristocratic  class  were  by  far  the  most 
educated,  by  far  the  most  respected,  by  far  the  most 
eligible  part  of  the  nation.  Even  in  the  boroughs, 
where  there  was  universal  suffrage  or  something 
near  it,  they  were  the  favorites.  Accordingly,  they 
gave  the  tone  to  the  House  of  Commons :  they  re- 
quired the  small  community  of  members  who  did  not 
belong  to  their  order  to  conform  as  far  as  they  could 
to  their  usages,  and  to  guide  themselves  by  their  code 
of  morality  and  of  taste.  In  the  main  the  House  of 
Commons  obeyed  these  injunctions,  and  it  was  repaid 
by  being  incorporated  within  the  aristocratic  world : 
it  became  not  only  the  council  of  the  nation,  but  the 
debating  club  of  fashion.  That  which  was  "received" 
modified  the  recipient :  the  remains  of  the  aristo- 
cratic society,  wherever  we  find  them,  are  penetrated 
not  only  with  an  aristocratic  but  with  a  political 
spirit;  they  breathe  a  sort  of  atmosphere  of  politics. 
In  the  London  of  the  present  day,  the  vast  miscella- 
neous bourgeois  London,  we  all  know  that  this  is  not 
so.  "In  the  country,"  said  a  splenetic  observer,  "peo- 
ple talk  politics ;  at  London  dinners  you  talk  nothing, 
—  between  two  pillars  of  crinoline  you  eat  and  are 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  373 

resigned."  A  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago,  as  far  as 
our  rather  ample  materials  inform  us,  people  in  Lon- 
don talked  politics  just  as  they  now  talk  politics  in 
Worcestershire ;  and  being  on  the  spot,  and  cooped 
up  with  politicians  in  a  small  social  world,  their  talk 
was  commonly  better.  They  knew  the  people  of 
whom  they  spoke,  even  if  they  did  not  know  the 
subjects  with  which  they  were  concerned. 

No  element  is  better  fitted  to  counteract  the  char- 
acteristic evil  of  an  aristocratic  society.  The  defect 
of  such  societies  in  all  times  has  been  frivolity.  All 
talk  has  tended  to  become  gossip;  it  has  ceased  to 
deal  with  important  subjects,  and  has  devoted  itself 
entirely  to-  unimportant  incidents.  Whether  the  Due 
de  -  -  has  more  or  less  prevailed  with  the  Marquise 
de  -  — ,  is  a  sort  of  common  form,  into  which  any 
details  may  be  fitted  and  any  names  inserted.  The 
frivolities  of  gallantry  —  never  very  important  save 
to  some  woman  who  has  long  been  dead  —  fill  the 
records  of  all  aristocracies  who  lived  under  a  despot- 
ism, who  had  no  political  authority,  no  daily  political 
cares.  The  aristocracy  of  England  in  the  last  cen- 
tury was  at  any  rate  exempt  from  this  reproach. 
There  is  in  the  records  of  it  not  only  an  intellectu- 
ality,—  which  would  prove  little,  for  every  clever 
describer,  by  the  subtleties  of  his  language  and  the 
arrangement  of  his  composition,  gives  a  sort  of  intel- 
lectuality even  to  matters  which  have  no  pretension 
to  it  themselves,  —  but  likewise  a  pervading  medium 
of  political  discussion.  The  very  language  in  which 
they  are  written  is  the  language  of  political  business. 
Horace  Walpole  was  certainly  by  nature  no  politician 
and  no  orator;  yet  no  discerning  critic  can  read  a 
page  of  his  voluminous  remains  without  feeling  that 
the  writer  has  through  life  lived  with  politicians  and 
talked  with  politicians.  A  keen  observant  mind,  not 
naturally  political,  but  capable  of  comprehending  and 
viewing  any  subject  which  was  brought  before  it,  has 
chanced  to  have  this  particular  subject  —  politics  — 


374  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

presented  to  it  for  a  lifetime ;  and  all  its  delineations, 
all  its  efforts,  all  its  thoughts  reflect  it  and  are  colored 
by  it.  In  all  the  records  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
the  tonic  of  business  is  seen  to  combat  the  relaxing 
effect  of  habitual  luxury. 

This  element,  too,  is  favorable  to  a  clever  woman. 
The  more  you  can  put  before  such  a  person,  the 
greater  she  will  be ;  the  less  her  world,  the  less  she 
is.  If  you  place  the  most  keen-sighted  lady  in  the 
midst  of  the  pure  futilities  and  unmitigated  flirtations 
of  an  aristocracy,  she  will  sink  to  the  level  of  those 
elements,  and  will  scarcely  seem  to  wish  for  anything 
more  or  to  be  competent  for  anything  higher.  But 
if  she  is  placed  in  an  intellectual  atmosphere,  in 
which  political  or  other  important  subjects  are  cur- 
rently passing,  you  will  probably  find  that  she  can 
talk  better  upon  them  than  you  can,  without  your 
being  .able  to  explain  whence  she  derived  either  her 
information  or  her  talent. 

The  subjects,  too,  which  were  discussed  in  the 
political  society  of  the  last  age  were  not  so  inscruta- 
ble to  women  as  our  present  subjects ;  and  even  when 
there  were  great  difficulties,  they  were  more  on  a 
level  with  men  in  the  discussion  of  them  than  they 
now  are.  It  was  no  disgrace  to  be  destitute  of  pre- 
liminary information  at  a  time  in  which  there  were 
no  accumulated  stores  from  which  such  information 
could  be  derived.  A  lightening  element  of  female 
influence  is  therefore  to  be  found  through  much  of 
the  politics  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Lady  Mary  entered  easily  into  all  this  world,  both 
social  and  political.  She  had  beauty  for  the  fashion- 
able, satire  for  the  witty,  knowledge  for  the  learned, 
and  intelligence  for  the  politician.  She  was  not  too 
refined  to  shrink  from  what  we  now  consider  the 
coarseness  of  that  time.  Many  of  her  verses  them- 
selves are  scarcely  adapted  for  our  decorous  pages. 
Perhaps  the  following  give  no  unfair  idea  of  her 
ordinary  state  of  mind  :  — 


LADY  MARY   WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  375 

"TOWN    ECLOGUES. 
"ROXANA;  OK,  THE  DBA  WING-ROOM. 

'  Roxana,  from  the  court  retiring  late, 
Sighed  her  soft  sorrows  at  St.  James's  gate. 
Such  heavy  thoughts  lay  brooding  in  her  breast, 
Not  her  own  chairmen  with  more  weight  oppressed ; 
They  groan  the  cruel  load  they're  doomed  to  bear ; 
She  in  these  gentle  sounds  expressed  her  care :  — 

'Was  it  for  this  that  I  these  roses  wear? 
For  this  new-set  the  jewels  for  my  hair? 
Ah,  Princess !  with  what  zeal  have  I  pursued ! 
Almost  forgot  the  duty  of  a  prude. 
Thinking  I  never  could  attend  too  soon, 
I've  missed  my  prayers,  to  get  me  dressed  by  noon. 
For  thee,  ah !  what  for  thee  did  I  resign ! 
My  pleasures,  passions,  all  that  e'er  was  mine. 
I  sacrificed  both  modesty  and  ease : 
Left  operas  and  went  to  filthy  plays, 
Double-entendres  shock  my  tender  ear, — 
Yet  even  this  for  thee  I  choose  to  bear. 

'  In  glowing  youth,  when  nature  bids  be  gay, 
And  every  joy  of  life  before  me  lay, 
By  honor  prompted  and  by  pride  restrained, 
The  pleasures  of  the  young  my  soul  disdained : 
Sermons  I  sought,  and  with  a  mien  severe 
Censured  my  neighbors,  and  said  daily  prayer. 

'Alas!  how  changed — with  the  same  sermon-mien 
That  once  I  pray'd,  the  WTuxt-cPye-calFt*  I've  seen. 
Ah !  cruel  Princess,  ior  thy  sake  I've  lost 
That  reputation  which  so  dear  had  cost : 
I,  who  avoided  every  public  place. 
When  bloom  and  beauty  bade  me  show  my  face, 
Now  near  thee  constant  every  night  abide 
With  never-failing  duty  by  thy  side ; 
Myself  and  daughters  standing  on  a  row, 
To  all  the  foreigners  a  goodly  show ! 
Oft  had  your  drawing-room  been  sadly  thin, 
And  merchants'  wives  close  by  the  chair  been  seen, 
Had  not  I  amply  filled  the  empty  space, 
And  saved  your  Highness  from  the  dire  disgrace. 


mock-tragedy  by  Gay. 


376  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO/S   BAGEHOT. 

'  Yet  Coquetilla's  artifice  prevails, 
"When  all  my  merit  and  my  duty  fails ; 
That  Coquetilla,  whose  deluding  airs 
Corrupt  our  virgins,  still  our  youth  ensnares. 
So  sunk  her  character,  so  lost  her  fame, 
Scarce  visited  before  your  Highness  came ; 
Yet  for  the  bed-chamber  'tis  her  you  choose, 
When  zeal  and  fame  and  virtue  you  refuse. 
Ah,  worthy  choice !   not  one  of  all  your  train 
"Whom  censure  blasts  not,  and  dishonors  stain  ! 
Let  the  nice  hind  now  suckle  dirty  pigs, 
And  the  proud  pea-hen  hatch  the  cuckoo's  eggs ! 
Let  Iris  leave  her  paint  and  own  her  age, 
And  grave  Suffolka  wed  a  giddy  page ! 
A  greater  miracle  is  daily  viewed, 
A  virtuous  Princess  with  a  court  so  lewd. 

'  I  know  thee,  Court !   with  all  thy  treacherous  wiles, 
Thy  false  caresses  and  undoing  smiles  ! 
Ah,  Princess !  learned  in  all  the  courtly  arts, 
To  cheat  our  hopes,  and  yet  to  gain  our  hearts  ! 

'  Large  lovely  bribes  are  the  great  statesman's  aim ; 
And  the  neglected  patriot  follows  fame. 
The  Prince  is  ogled ;  some  the  King  pursue  : 
But  your  Roxana  only  follows  you. 
Despised  Roxana,  cease,  and  try  to  find 
Some  other,  since  the  Princess  proves  unkind  ; 
Perhaps  it  is  not  hard  to  find  at  court, 
If  not  a  greater,  a  more  firm  support. ' " 

There  was  every  kind  of  rumor  as  to  Lady  Mary's 
own  conduct,  and  we  have  no  means  of  saying 
whether  any  of  these  rumors  were  true.  There  is  no 
evidence  against  her  which  is  worthy  of  the  name. 
So  far  as  can  be  proved,  she  was  simply  a  gay, 
witty,  bold-spoken,  handsome  woman,  who  made  many 
enemies  by  unscrupulous  speech  and  many  friends 
by  unscrupulous  flirtation.  We  may  believe,  but  we 
cannot  prove,  that  she  found  her  husband  tedious, 
and  was  dissatisfied  that  his  slow,  methodical,  borne 
mind  made  so  little  progress  in  the  political  world,  and 
understood  so  little  of  what  really  passed  there.  Un- 
questionably she  must  have  much  preferred  talking 
to  Lord  Hervey  to  talking  with  Mr.  Montagu.  But  we 


LADY   MARY  WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  377 

must  not  credit  the  idle  scandals  of  a  hundred  years 
since  because  they  may  have  been  true,  or  because 
they  appear  not  inconsistent  with  the  characters 
of  those  to  whom  they  relate.  There  were  legends 
against  every  attractive  and  fashionable  woman  in 
that  age,  and  most  of  the  legends  were  doubtless  exag- 
gerations and  inventions.  We  cannot  know  the  truth 
of  such  matters  now,  and  it  would  hardly  be  worth 
searching  into  if  we  could :  but  the  important  fact 
is  certain,  Lady  Mary  lived  in  a  world  in  which  the 
worst  rumors  were  greedily  told,  and  often  believed, 
about  her  and  others ;  and  the  moral  refinement  of  a 
woman  must  always  be  impaired  by  such  a  contact. 

Lady  Mary  was  so  unfortunate  as  to  incur  the 
partial  dislike  of  one  of  the  great  recorders  of  that 
age,  and  the  bitter  hostility  of  the  other :  she  was  no 
favorite  with  Horace  Walpole,  and  the  bitter  enemy 
of  Pope.  The  first  is  easily  explicable.  Horace  Wal- 
pole never  loved  his  father,  but  recompensed  himself 
by  hating  his  father's  enemies.  No  one  connected 
with  the  opposition  to  Sir  Robert  is  spared  by  his 
son,  if  there  be  a  fair  opportunity  for  unfavorable 
insinuation.  Mr.  Wortley  Montagu  was  the  very  man 
for  a  grave  mistake.  He  made  the  very  worst  that 
could  be  made  in  that  age :  he  joined  the  party  of 
constitutional  exiles  on  the  Opposition  bench,  who 
had  no  real  objection  to  the  policy  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole ;  who,  when  they  had  a  chance,  adopted  that 
policy  themselves ;  who  were  discontented  because 
they  had  no  power,  and  he  had  all  the  power.  Prob- 
ably, too,  being  a  man  eminently  respectable,  Mr. 
Montagu  was  frightened  at  Sir  Robert's  unscrupulous 
talk  and  not  very  scrupulous  actions.  At  any  rate, 
he  opposed  Sir  Robert ;  and  thence  many  a  little  ob- 
servation of  Horace  Walpole's  against  Lady  Mary. 

Why  Pope  and  Lady  Mary  quarreled  is  a  question 
on  which  much  discussion  has  been  expended,  and  on 
which  a  judicious  German  professor  might  even  now 
compose  an  interesting  and  exhaustive  monograph. 


378  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

A  curt  English  critic  will  be  more  apt  to  ask  why 
they  should  not  have  quarreled.  We  know  that  Pope 
quarreled  with  almost  every  one ;  we  know  that  Lady 
Mary  quarreled  or  half  quarreled  with  most  of  her 
acquaintances :  why  then  should  they  not  have  quar- 
reled with  one  another  ? 

It  is  certain  that  they  were  very  intimate  at  one 
time ;  for  Pope  wrote  to  her  some  of  the  most  pom- 
pous letters  of  compliment  in  the  language.  And  the 
more  intimate  they  were  to  begin  with,  the  more  sure 
they  were  to  be  enemies  in  the  end.  Human  nature 
will  not  endure  that  sort  of  proximity.  An  irritable, 
vain  poet,  who  always  fancies  that  people  are  trying 
to  hurt  him,  whom  110  argument  could  convince  that 
every  one  is  not  perpetually  thinking  about  him,  can- 
not long  be  friendly  with  a  witty  woman  of  unscru- 
pulous tongue,  who  spares  no  one,  who  could  sacrifice 
a  good  friend  for  a  bad  bon-mot,  who  thinks  of  the 
person  whom  she  is  addressing,  not  of  those  about 
whom  she  is  speaking.  The  natural  relation  of  the 
two  is  that  of  victim  and  torturer,  and  no  other  will 
long  continue.  There  appear  also  to  have  been  some 
money  matters  (of  all  things  in  the  world)  between 
the  two :  Lady  Mary  was  intrusted  by  Pope  with 
some  money  to  use  in  speculation  during  the  highly 
fashionable  panic  which  derives  its  name  from  the 
South-Sea  Bubble ;  and  as  of  course  it  was  lost,  Pope 
was  very  angry.  Another  story  goes,  that  Pope  made 
serious  love  to  Lady  Mary,  and  that  she  laughed  at 
him ;  upon  which  a  very  personal  and  not  always 
very  correct  controversy  has  arisen  as  to  the  prob- 
ability or  improbability  of  Pope's  exciting  a  lady's 
feelings.  Lord  Byron  took  part  in  it  with  his  usual 
acuteness  and  incisiveness,  and  did  not  leave  the  dis- 
cussion more  decent  than  he  found  it.  Pope  doubt- 
less was  deformed,  and  had  not  the  large  red  health 
that  uncivilized  women  admire ;  yet  a  clever  lady 
might  have  taken  a  fancy  to  him,  for  the  little  crea- 
ture knew  what  he  was  saying.  There  is,  however, 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  379 

no  evidence  that  Lady  Mary  did  so.  We  only  know 
that  there  was  a  sudden  coolness  or  quarrel  between 
them,  and  that  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  long  and 
bitter  hatred. 

In  their  own  times,  Pope's  sensitive  disposition 
probably  gave  Lady  Mary  a  great  advantage, — her 
tongue  perhaps  gave  him  more  pain  than  his  pen 
gave  her;  but  in  later  times  she  has  fared  the  worse. 
What  between  Pope's  sarcasms  and  Horace  Walpole's 
anecdotes,  Lady  Mary's  reputation  has  suffered  very 
considerably.  As  we  have  said,  her  offences  are  not 
proven, — there  is  no  evidence  to  convict  her;  but  she 
is  likely  to  be  condemned  upon  the  general  doctrine 
that  a  person  who  is  accused  of  much  is  probably 
guilty  of  something. 

During  many  years  Lady  Mary  continued  to  live 
a  distinguished  fashionable  and  social  life,  with  a 
single  remarkable  break.  This  interval  was  her  jour- 
ney to  Constantinople.  The  powers  that  then  were, 
thought  fit  to  send  Mr.  Wortley  as  ambassador  to 
Constantinople,  and  his  wife  accompanied  him.  Dur- 
ing that  visit  she  kept  a  journal  and  wrote  sundry 
real  letters ;  out  of  which,  after  her  return,  she  com- 
posed a  series  of  unreal  letters  as  to  all  she  saw  and 
did  in  Turkey  and  on  the  journey  there  and  back, 
which  were  published,  and  which  are  still  amusing  if 
not  always  select  reading.  The  Sultan  was  not  then 
the  "dying  man":  he  was  the  "Grand  Turk."  He 
was  not  simply  a  potentate  to  be  counted  with,  but 
a  power  to  be  feared.  The  appearance  of  a  Turkish 
army  on  the  Danube  had  in  that  age  much  the  same 
effect  as  the  appearance  of  a  Russian  army  now :  it 
was  an  object  of  terror  and  dread.  A  mission  at 
Constantinople  was  not  then  a  bureau  for  interfer- 
ence in  Turkey,  but  a  serious  office  for  transacting 
business  with  a  great  European  power.  A  European 
ambassador  at  Constantinople  now  presses  on  the  gov- 
ernment there  impracticable  reforms :  he  then  asked 
for  useful  aid.  Lady  Mary  was  evidently  impressed 


380  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S   BAGEHOT. 

by  the  power  of  the  country  in  which  she  sojourned ; 
and  we  observe  in  her  letters  evident  traces  of  the 
notion  that  the  Turk  was  the  dread  of  Christendom, 
-which  is  singular  now,  when  the  Turk  is  its 
protege. 

Lady  Mary  had  another  advantage  too.  Many  sorts 
of  books  make  steady  progress;  a  scientific  treatise 
published  now  is  sure  to  be  fuller  and  better  than 
one  on  the  same  subject  written  long  ago.  But  with 
books  of  travel  in  a  stationary  country  the  presump- 
tion is  the  contrary ;  in  that  case  the  old  book  is 
probably  the  better  book.  The  first  traveler  writes 
out  a  plain,  straightforward  description  of  the  most 
striking  objects  with  which  he  meets ;  he  believes 
that  his  readers  know  nothing  of  the  country  of 
which  he  is  writing,  for  till  he  visited  it  he  probably 
knew  nothing  himself,  and  if  he  is  sensible  he  de- 
scribes simply  and  clearly  all  which  most  impresses 
him.  He  has  no  motive  for  not  dwelling  upon  the 
principal  things,  and  most  likely  will  do  so,  as  they 
are  probably  the  most  conspicuous.  The  second  trav- 
eler is  not  so  fortunate :  he  is  always  in  terror  of  the 
traveler  who  went  before.  He  fears  the  criticism, 
"  This  is  all  very  well,  but  we  knew  the  whole  of  it 
before :  No.  1  said  that  at  page  103."  In  consequence 
he  is  timid :  he  picks  and  skips ;  he  fancies  that  you 
are  acquainted  with  all  which  is  great  and  important, 
and  he  dwells,  for  your  good  and  to  your  pain,  upon 
that  which  is  small  and  unimportant.  For  ordinary 
readers  no  result  can  be  more  fatal.  They  perhaps 
never  read  —  they  certainly  do  not  remember  —  any- 
thing upon  the  subject ;  the  curious  minutiae,  so  elab- 
orately set  forth,  are  quite  useless,  for  they  have  not 
the  general  framework  in  which  to  store  them;  not 
knowing  much  of  the  first  traveler's  work,  that  of 
the  second  is  a  supplement  to  a  treatise  with  which 
they  are  unacquainted :  in  consequence  they  do  not 
read  it.  Lady  Mary  made  good  use  of  her  position 
hi  the  front  of  the  herd  of  tourists :  she  told  us  what 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  381 

she  saw  in  Turkey,  —  all  the  best  of  what  she  saw, 
and  all  the  most  remarkable  things,  —  and  told  it  very 
well. 

Nor  was  this  work  the  only  fruit  of  her  Turkish 
travels :  she  brought  home  the  notion  of  inoculation. 
Like  most  improvers,  she  was  roughly  spoken  to. 
Medical  men  were  angry  because  the  practice  was 
not  in  their  books,  and  conservative  men  were  cross 
at  the  agony  of  a  new  idea ;  religious  people  consid- 
ered it  wicked  to  have  a  disease  which  Providence 
did  not  think  fit  to  send  you,  and  simple  people  "did 
not  like  to  make  themselves  ill  of  their  own  accord." 
She  triumphed,  however,  over  all  obstacles :  inocula- 
tion, being  really  found  to  lengthen  life  and  save 
complexions,  before  long  became  general.  One  of  the 
first  patients  upon  whom  Lady  Mary  tried  the  nov- 
elty was  her  own  son,  and  many  considerate  people 
thought  it  "worthy  of  observation"  that  he  turned 
out  a  scamp.  When  he  ran  away  from  school,  the 
mark  of  inoculation  (then  rare)  was  used  to  describe 
him,  and  after  he  was  recovered  he  never  did  any- 
thing which  was  good.  His  case  seems  to  have  been 
the  common  one  in  which  nature  (as  we  speak)  re- 
quites herself  for  the  strong-headedness  of  several 
generations  by  the  weakness  of  one.  His  father's 
and  his  mother's  family  had  been  rather  able  for 
some  generations,  the  latter  remarkably  so ;  but  this 
boy  had  always  a  sort  of  practical  imbecility,  —  he 
was  not  stupid,  but  he  never  did  anything  right.  He 
exemplified  another  curious  trait  of  nature's  practice. 
Mr.  Montagu  was  obstinate,  though  sensible ;  Lady 
Mary  was  flighty,  though  clever.  Nature  combined 
the  defects :  young  Edward  Montagu  was  both  obsti- 
nate and  flighty.  The  only  pleasure  he  can  ever  have 
given  his  parents  was  the  pleasure  of  feeling  their 
own  wisdom :  he  showed  that  they  were  right  before 
marriage  in  not  settling  the  paternal  property  upon 
him,  for  he  ran  through  every  shilling  he  possessed. 
He  was  not  sensible  enough  to  keep  his  property, 


382  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  just  not  fool  enough  for  the  law  to  take  it  from 
him. 

After  her  return  from  Constantinople,  Lady  Mary 
continued  to  lead  the  same  half -gay  and  half -literary 
life  as  before ;  but  at  last  she  did  not  like  it.  Vari- 
ous ingenious  inquirers  into  antiquated  minutiae  have 
endeavored,  without  success,  to  discover  reasons  of 
detail  which  might  explain  her  dissatisfaction.  They 
have  suggested  that  some  irregular  love  affair  was 
unprosperous,  and  hinted  that  she  and  her  husband 
were  not  on  good  terms.  The  love  affair,  .however, 
when  looked  for,  cannot  be  found ;  and  though  she 
and  her  husband  would  appear  to  have  been  but  dis- 
tantly related,  they  never  had  any  great  quarrel 
which  we  know  of.  Neither  seems  to  have  been  fit- 
ted to  give  the  other  much  pleasure,  and  each  had 
the  fault  of  which  the  other  was  most  impatient. 
Before  marriage  Lady  Mary  had  charmed  Mr.  Mon- 
tagu, but  she  had  also  frightened  him ;  after  marriage 
she  frightened  but  did  not  charm  him.  He  was 
formal  and  composed;  she  was  flighty  and  outree. 
"What  will  she  do  next?"  was  doubtless  the  poor 
man's  daily  feeling;  and  "Will  he  ever  do  anything?" 
was  probably  also  hers.  Torpid  business,  which  is 
always  going  on  but  which  never  seems  to  come  to 
anything,  is  simply  aggravating  to  a  clever  woman. 
Even  the  least  impatient  lady  can  hardly  endure  a 
perpetual  process  for  which  there  is  little  visible  and 
nothing  theatrical  to  show;  and  Lady  Mary  was  by 
no  means  the  least  impatient.  But  there  was  no 
abrupt  quarrel  between  the  two;  and  a  husband  and 
wife  who  have  lived  together  more  than  twenty  years 
can  generally  manage  to  continue  to  live  together 
during  a  second  twenty  years.  These  reasons  of  de- 
tail are  scarcely  the  reasons  for  Lady  Mary's  wishing 
to  break  away  from  the  life  to  which  she  had  so  long 
been  used.  Yet  there  was  clearly  some  reason;  for 
Lady  Mary  went  abroad,  and  stayed  there  during 
many  years. 


LADY   MARY   WORTLEY   MONTAGU.  383 

We  believe  that  the  cause  was  not  special  and 
peculiar  to  the  case,  but  general  and  due  to  the  inva- 
riable principles  of  human  nature,  at  all  times  and 
everywhere.  If  historical  experience  proves  anything, 
it  proves  that  the  earth  is  not  adapted  for  a  life  of 
mere  intellectual  pleasure.  The  life  of  a  brute  on 
earth,  though  bad,  is  possible.  It  is  not  even  difficult 
to  many  persons  to  destroy  the  higher  part  of  their 
nature  by  a  continual  excess  in  sensual  pleasure.  It 
is  even  more  easy  and  possible  to  dull  all  the  soul 
and  most  of  the  mind  by  a  vapid  accumulation  of 
torpid  comfort.  Many  of  the  middle  classes  spend 
their  whole  lives  in  a  constant  series  of  petty  pleas- 
ures and  an  undeviating  pursuit  of  small  material 
objects.  The  gross  pursuit  of  pleasure  and  the  tire- 
some pursuit  of  petty  comfort  are  quite  suitable  to 
"such  a  being  as  man  in  such  a  world  as  the  present 
one."*  What  is  not  possible  is,  to  combine  the  pursuit 
of  pleasure  and  the  enjoyment  of  comfort  with  the 
characteristic  pleasures  of  a  strong  mind.  If  you 
wish  for  luxury,  you  must  not  nourish  the  inquisitive 
instinct.  The  great  problems  of  human  life  are  in 
the  air;  they  are  without  us  in  the  life  we  see,  within 
us  in  the  life  we  feel.  A  quick  intellect  feels  them 
in  a  moment:  it  says,  "Why  am  I  here!  What  is 
pleasure,  that  I  desire  it?  What  is  comfort,  that  I 
seek  it  ?  What  are  carpets  and  tables,  what  is  the 
lust  of  the  eye,  what  is  the  pride  of  life,  that  they 
should  satisfy  me  ?  I  was  not  made  for  such  things. 
I  hate  them,  because  I  have  liked  them;  I  loathe 
them,  because  it  seems  that  there  is  nothing  else  for 
me."  An  impatient  woman's  intellect  comes  to  this 
point  in  a  moment :  it  says,  "  Society  is  good,  but  I 
have  seen  society.  What  is  the  use  of  talking,  or 
hearing  bon-mots?  I  have  done  both  till  I  am  tired 
of  doing  either.  I  have  laughed  till  I  have  no  wish 
to  laugh  again,  and  made  others  laugh  till  I  have 
hated  them  for  being  such  fools.  As  for  instruction, 
I  have  seen  the  men  of  genius  of  my  time;  and  they 


*  See  note  to  Vol.  ii.,  page  109. 


384  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

tell  me  nothing,  —  nothing  of  what  I  want  to  know. 
They  are  choked  with  intellectual  frivolities.  They 
cannot  say  'whence  I  came  and  whither  I  go.'  What 
do  they  know  of  themselves?  It  is  not  from  literary 
people  that  we  can  learn  anything;  more  likely,  they 
will  copy  or  try  to  copy  the  manners  of  lords,  and 
make  ugly  love  in  bad  imitation  of  those  who  despise 
them."  Lady  Mary  felt  this,  as  we  believe.  She  had 
seen  all  the  world  of  England,  and  it  did  not  satisfy. 
She  turned  abroad,  not  in  pursuit  of  definite  good 
nor  from  fear  of  particular  evil,  but  from  a  vague 
wish  for  some  great  change :  from  a  wish  to  escape 
from  a  life  which  harassed  the  soul  but  did  not  calm 
it,  which  awakened  the  intellect  without  answering 
its  questions. 

She  lived  abroad  for  more  than  twenty  years,  at 
Avignon  and  Venice  and  elsewhere;  and  during  that 
absence  she  wrote  the  letters  which  compose  the 
greater  part  of  her  works.  And  there  is  no  denying 
that  they  are  good  letters.  The  art  of  note-writing 
may  become  classical,  —  it  is  for  the  present  age  to 
provide  models  of  that  sort  of  composition,  —  but  let- 
ters have  perished.  Nobody  but  a  bore  now  takes 
pains  enough  to  make  them  pleasant ;  and  the  only 
result  of  a  bore's  pains  is  to  make  them  unpleasant. 
The  correspondence  of  the  present  day  is  a  continual 
labor  without  any  visible  achievement.  The  dying 
penny-a-liner  said  with  emphasis,  "  That  which  I  have 
written  has  perished."  We  might  all  say  so  of  the 
mass  of  petty  letters  we  write  :  they  are  a  heap  of 
small  atoms,  each  with  some  interest  individually,  but 
with  no  interest  as  a  whole;  all  the  items  concern 
us,  but  they  all  add  up  to  nothing.  In  the  last  cen- 
tury, cultivated  people  who  sat  down  to  write  a  letter 
took  pains  to  have  something  to  say,  and  took  pains 
to  say  it.  The  postage  was  perhaps  ninepence ;  and 
it  would  be  impudent  to  make  a  correspondent  pay 
ninepence  for  nothing.  Still  more  impudent  was  it, 
after  having  made  him  pay  ninepence,  to  give  him 


LADY  MARY  WORTLEY  MONTAGU.  385 

the  additional  pain  of  making  out  what  was  half  ex- 
pressed. People,  too,  wrote  to  one  another-  then,  not 
unfrequently,  who  had  long  been  separated,  and  who 
required  much  explanation  and  many  details  to  make 
the  life  of  each  intelligible  to  the  other.  The  corre- 
spondence of  the  nineteenth  century  is  like  a  series 
of  telegrams  with  amplified  headings :  there  is  not 
more  than  one  idea,  and  that  idea  comes  soon  and 
is  soon  over.  The  best  correspondence  of  the  last 
age  is  rather  like  a  good  light  article,  —  in  which  the 
points  are  studiously  made ;  in  which  the  effort  to 
make  them  is  studiously  concealed;  in  which  a  series 
of  selected  circumstances  is  set  forth;  in  which  you 
feel,  but  are  not  told,  that  the  principle  of  the  writer's 
selection  was  to  make  his  composition  pleasant. 

In  letter-writing  of  this  kind  Lady  Mary  was  very 
skillful.  She  has  the  highest  merit  of  letter-writing, 
—  she  is  concise  without  being  affected.  Fluency, 
which  a  great  orator  pronounced  to  be  the  curse  of 
orators,  is  at  least  equally  the  curse  of  writers.  There 
are  many  people,  many  ladies  especially,  who  can 
write  letters  at  any  length,  in  any  number,  and  at 
any  time.  We  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  letters 
so  written  are  not  good  letters.  Composition  of  any 
sort  implies  consideration ;  you  must  see  where  you 
are  going  before  you  can  go  straight,  or  can  pick 
your  steps  as  you  go.  On  the  other  hand,  too  much 
consideration  is  unfavorable  to  the  ease  of  letter-writ- 
ing, and  perhaps  of  all  writing.  A  letter  too  much 
studied  wants  flow :  it  is  a  museum  of  hoarded  sen- 
tences ;  each  sentence  sounds  effective,  but  the  whole 
composition  wants  vitality;  it  was  written  with 
the  memory  instead  of  the  mind :  and  every  reader 
feels  the  effect,  though  only  the  critical  reader  can 
detect  the  cause.  Lady  Mary  understood  all  this :  she 
said  what  she  had  to  say  in  words  that  were  always 
graphic  and  always  sufficiently  good,  but  she  avoided 
curious  felicity ;  her  expressions  seem  choice,  but  not 
chosen. 

VOL.  I.  — 25 


386  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

At  the  end  of  her  life  Lady  Mary  pointed  a  sub- 
ordinate but  not  a  useless  moral.  The  masters  of 
mundane  ethics  observe  that  "You  should  stay  in  the 
world  or  stay  out  of  the  world."  Lady  Mary  did 
neither:  she  went  out  and  tried  to  return.  Horace 
Walpole  thus  describes  the  result :  — 

"Lady  Mary  Wortley  is  arrived;  I  have  seen  her;  I  think  her 
avarice,  her  dirt,  and  her  vivacity  are  all  increased.  Her  dress,  like 
her  languages,  is  a  galimatias  of  several  countries ;  the  groundwork 
rags,  and  the  embroidery  nastiness.  She  needs  no  cap,  no  handker- 
chief, no  gown,  no  petticoat,  no  shoes.  An  old  black-laced  hood 
represents  the  first ;  the  fur  of  a  horseman's  coat,  which  replaces 
the  third,  serves  for  the  second ;  a  dimity  petticoat  is  deputy  and 
officiates  for  the  fourth ;  and  slippers  act  the  part  of  the  last. 
When  I  was  at  Florence,  and  she  was  expected  there,  we  were 
drawing  sortes  Virgilianas  for  her ;  we  literally  drew 

"'Insanam  vatem  aspicies.'* 

It  would  have  been  a  stronger  prophecy  now  even  than  it  was 
then." 

There  is  a  description  of  what  the  favorite  of  society 
becomes  after  leaving  it  for  years,  and  after  indulg- 
ing eccentricities  for  years !  There  is  a  commentary 
on  the  blunder  of  exposing  yourself  in  your  old  age 
to  young  people,  to  whom  you  have  always  been  a 
tradition  and  a  name !  Horace  Walpole  doubtless 
painted  up  a  few  trivialities  a  little;  but  one  of  the 
traits  is  true:  Lady  Mary  lived  before  the  age  in 
which  people  waste  half  their  lives  in  washing  the 
whole  of  their  persons. 

Lady  Mary  did  not  live  long  after  her  return  to 
England.  Horace  Walpole's  letter  is  written  on  the 
3d  of  February,  1762,  and  she  died  on  the  21st  of 
August  in  the  same  year.  Her  husband  had  died 
just  before  her  return,  and  perhaps  after  so  many 
years  she  would  not  have  returned  unless  he  had 
done  so.  Requiescat  in  pace;  for  she  quarreled  all 
her  life. 

*"  You  will  see  a  mad  prophetess  "  (or  "poetess").— "-^Eneid,"  iii.,  443. 


WILLIAM  COWPER* 

(1855.) 

[  The  chief  source  of  Bagehot's  facts  in  this  article,  though  not  referred 
to  below,  was  Southey's  admirable  memoir  and  edition  of  Cowper's  corre- 
spondence.—  ED.] 

FOR  the  English,  after  all,  the  best  literature  is  the 
English  :  we  understand  the  language  ;  the  manners 
are  familiar  to  us,  the  scene  at  home,  the  associa- 
tions our  own.  Of  course  a  man  who  has  not  read 
Homer  is  like  a  man  who  has  not  seen  the  ocean  : 
there  is  a  great  object  of  which  he  has  no  idea.  But 
we  cannot  be  always  seeing  the  ocean  :  its  face  isb 
always  large,  its  smile  is  bright,  the  ever-sounding 
shore  sounds  on,  yet  we  have  no  property  in  them ; 
we  stop  and  gaze,  we  pause  and  draw  our  breath, 
we  look  and  wonder  at  the  grandeur  of  the  other 
world,  but  we  live  on  shore.  We  fancy  associations 
of  unknown  things  and  distant  climes,  of  strange 
men  and  strange  manners,  but  we  are  ourselves. 
Foreigners  do  not  behave  as  we  should,  nor  do 
the  Greeks.  What  a  strength  of  imagination,  what 
a  long  practice,  what  a  facility  in  the  details  of 
fancy-  is  required  to  picture  their  past  and  unknown 
world !  They  are  deceased.  They  are  said  to  be 
immortal,  because  they  have  written  a  good  epitaph  : 
but  they  are  gone ;  their  life  and  their  manners 
have  passed  away.  We  read  with  interest  in  the 
"Catalogue  of  the  Ships" 

*  Poetical  Works  of  William  Cowper.  Edited  by  Robert  Bell.  J.  W. 
Parker  &  Son. 

The  Life  of  William  Cowper,  with  Selections  from  his  Correspondence. 
Being  Vol.  i.  of  the  Library  of  Christian  Biography,  superintended  by  the 
Rev.  Robert  Bickersteth.  Seeley,  Jackson  &  Co. 

(387) 


THE  TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.  S   BAGEHOT. 


"  The  men  of  Argos  and  Tiryntha  next, 
And  of  Hermione,  that  stands  retired 
With  Asine,  within  her  spacious  bay ; 
Of  Epidaurus,  crowned  with  purple  vines, 
And  of  Troezene,  with  the  Achaian  youth 
Of  sea-begirt  ^Egina,  and  with  thine, 
Maseta,  and  the  dwellers  on  thy  coast, 

"Wave-worn  Ei'onse ; 

And  from  Caristus  and  from  Styra  came 
Their  warlike  multitudes,  in  front  of  whom 
Elphenor  marched,  Calchodon's  mighty  son. 
With  foreheads  shorn  and  wavy  locks  behind, 
They  followed,  and  alike  were  eager  all 
To  split  the  hauberk  with  the  shortened  spear."* 

But  they  are  dead.  '"So  am  not  I,'  said  the  fool- 
ish fat  scullion."!  We  are  the  English  of  the  present 
day  :  we  have  cows  and  calves,  corn  and  cotton ; 
we  hate  the  Russians  ;  we  know  where  the  Crimea 
is ;  we  believe  in  Manchester  the  great.  A  large 
expanse  is  around  us :  a  fertile  land  of  corn  and 
orchards  and  pleasant  hedge-rows  and  rising  trees 
and  noble  prospects  and  large  black  woods  and  old 
church  towers.  The  din  of  great  cities  comes  mel- 
lowed from  afar.  The  green  fields,  the  half-hidden 
hamlets,  the  gentle  leaves  soothe  us  "with  a  soft 
inland  murmur.  "J  We  have  before  us  a  vast  seat 
of  interest  and  toil  and  beauty  and  power,  and  this 
our  own.  Here  is  our  home.  The  use  of  foreign  lit- 
erature is  like  the  use  of  foreign  travel, — it  imprints 
in  early  and  susceptible  years  a  deep  impression  of 
great  and  strange  and  noble  objects  ;  but  we  cannot 
live  with  these.  They  do  not  resemble  our  familiar 
life ;  they  do  not  bind  themselves  to  our  intimate 
affection  ;  they  are  picturesque  and  striking,  like 
strangers  and  wayfarers,  but  they  are  not  of  our 
home,  or  homely;  they  cannot  speak  to  our  "business 

*"  Iliad,"  Book  ii.,  Cowper's  translation,  revised  by  Southey. 
t"  Tristram  Shandy,"  Book  iv.,  Chap.  vii. 
J  Words  worth,  "Tinteru  Abbey." 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  389 


and  bosoms " ;  *  they  cannot  touch  the  hearth  of 
the  soul.  It  would  be  better  to  have  no  outlandish 
literature  in  the  mind  than  to  have  it  the  principal 
thing :  we  should  be  like  accomplished  vagabonds 
without  a  country,  like  men  with  a  hundred  acquaint- 
ances and  no  friends.  We  need  an  intellectual  pos- 
session analogous  to  our  own  life,  —  which  reflects, 
embodies,  improves  it ;  on  which  we  can  repose ; 
which  will  recur  to  us  in  the  placid  moments  —  which 
will  be  a  latent  principle  even  in  the  acute  crises  — 
of  our  life.  Let  us  be  thankful  if  our  researches 
in  foreign  literature  enable  us,  as  rightly  used  they 
will  enable  us,  better  to  comprehend  our  own.  Let 
us  venerate  what  is  old,  and  marvel  at  what  is 
far ;  let  us  read  our  own  books,  let  us  understand 
ourselves. 

With  these  principles  (if  such  they  may  be  called) 
in  our  minds,  we  gladly  devote  these  early  pages 
of  our  journal  f  to  the  new  edition  of  Cowper,  with 
which  Mr.  Bell  has  favored  us.  There  is  no  writer 
more  exclusively  English  ;  there  is  no  one — or  hardly 
one,  perhaps  —  whose  excellences  are  more  natural 
to  our  soil,  and  seem  so  little  able  to  bear  trans- 
plantation. We  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  his 
name  in  any  Continental  book.  Professed  histories  of 
English  literature,  we  dare  say,  name  him ;  but  we 
cannot  recall  any  such  familiar  and  cursory  men- 
tion as  would  evince  a  real  knowledge  and  hearty 
appreciation  of  his  writings. 

The  edition  itself  is  a  good  one.  The  life  of  Cow- 
per which  is  prefixed  to  it,  though  not  striking,  is 
sensible.  The  notes  are  clear,  explanatory,  and  —  so 
far  as  we  know  —  accurate.  The  special  introductions 
to  each  of  the  poems  are  short  and  judicious,  and 
bring  to  the  mind  at  the  proper  moment  the  passages 
in  Cowper's  letters  most  clearly  relating  to  the  work 
in  hand.  The  typography  is  not  very  elegant,  but  it 

*  Bacon,  Dedication  to  Essays. 

tThis  was  the  second  article  in  the  first  number  of  the  National  Review. 


390  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

is  plain  and  business-like  :  there  is  no  affectation  of 
cheap  ornament. 

The  little  book  which  stands  second  on  our  list 
belongs  to  a  class  of  narratives  written  for  a  peculiar 
public,  inculcating  peculiar  doctrines,  and  adapted 
(at  least  in  part)  to  a  peculiar  taste.  We  dissent 
from  many  of  these  tenets,  and  believe  that  they 
derive  no  support,  but  rather  the  contrary,  from  the 
life  of  Cowper.  In  previous  publications,  written  for 
the  same  persons,  these  opinions  have  been  applied  to 
that  melancholy  story  in  a  manner  which  it  requires 
strong  writing  to  describe ;  in  this  little  volume  they 
are  more  rarely  expressed,  and  when  they  are,  it  is 
with  diffidence,  tact,  and  judgment. 

Only  a  most  pedantic  critic  would  attempt  to  sep- 
arate the  criticism  on  Cowper's  works  from  a  nar- 
rative of  his  life  ;  indeed,  such  an  attempt  would  be 
scarcely  intelligible.  Cowper's  poems  are  almost  as 
much  connected  with  his  personal  circumstances  as 
his  letters,  and  his  letters  are  as  purely  autobiograph- 
ical as  those  of  any  man  can  be.  If  all  information 
concerning  him  had  perished  save  what  his  poems 
contain,  the  attention  of  critics  would  be  diverted 
from  the  examination  of  their  interior  characteristics 
to  a  conjectural  dissertation  on  the  personal  fortunes 
of  the  author.  The  Germans  would  have  much  to 
say.  It  would  be  debated  in  Tubingen  who  were 
the  Three  Hares,  why  "The  Sofa"  was  written,  why 
John  Gilpin  was  not  called  William.  Halle  would 
show  with  great  clearness  that  there  was  no  reason 
why  he  should  be  called  William  ;  that  it  appeared 
by  the  bills  of  mortality  that  several  other  persons 
born  about  the  same  period  had  also  been  called 
John  :  and  the  ablest  of  all  the  professors  would 
finish  the  subject  with  a  monograph  showing  that 
there  was  a  special  fitness  in  the  name  John,  and 
that  any  one  with  the  aesthetic  sense,  who  (like  the 
professor)  had  devoted  many  years  exclusively  to 
the  perusal  of  the  poem,  would  be  certain  that  any 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  391 


other  name  would  be  quite  "  paralogistic,  and  in  ev- 
ery manner  impossible  and  inappropriate."  It  would 
take  a  German  to  write  upon  the  Hares. 

William  Cowper,  the  poet,  was  born  on  Nov.  26, 
1731,  at  his  father's  parsonage  at  Berkhampstead. 
Of  his  father,  who  was  chaplain  to  the  king,  we 
know  nothing  of  importance.  Of  his  mother,  who 
had  been  named  Donne,  and  was  a  Norfolk  lady,  he 
has  often  made  mention ;  and  it  appears  that  he 
regarded  the  faint  recollection  which  he  retained  of 
her  —  for  she  died  early  —  with  peculiar  tenderness. 
In  later  life,  and  when  his  sun  was  going  down  in 
gloom  and  sorrow,  he  recurred  eagerly  to  opportuni- 
ties of  intimacy  with  her  .most  distant  relatives,  and 
wished  to  keep  alive  the  idea  of  her  in  his  mind. 
That  idea  was  not  of  course  very  definite,  —  indeed, 
as  described  in  his  poems,  it  is  rather  the  abstract 
idea  of  what  a  mother  should  be  than  anything  else ; 
but  he  was  able  to  recognize  her  picture,  and  there 
is  a  suggestion  of  cakes  and  sugar-plums  which  gives 
a  life  and  vividness  to  the  rest.  Soon  after  her 
death  he  was  sent  to  a  school  kept  by  a  man  named 
Pitman,  at  which  he  always  described  himself  as  hav- 
ing suffered  exceedingly  from  the  cruelty  of  one  of 
the  boys,  —  he  could  never  see  him  or  think  of  him, 
he  has  told  us,  without  trembling;  and  there  must 
have  been  some  solid  reason  for  this  terror,  since  — 
even  in  those  days,  when  TVTTTW  meant  "I  strike," 
and  "boy"  denoted  a  thing  to  be  beaten  —  this  juve- 
nile inflicter  of  secret  stripes  was  actually  expelled. 
From  Mr.  Pitman,  Cowper,  on  account  of  a  weakness 
in  the  eyes  which  remained  with  him  through  life, 
was  transferred  to  the  care  of  an  oculist,  —  a  dread- 
ful fate  even  for  the  most  cheerful  boy,  and  cer- 
tainly not  likely  to  cure  one  with  any  disposition 
to  melancholy ;  hardly  indeed  can  the  boldest  mind, 
in  its  toughest  hour  of  manly  fortitude,  endure  to 
be  domesticated  with  an  operation  chair.  Thence 
he  went  to  Westminster,  of  which  he  has  left  us 


392  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.   CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

discrepant  notices,  according  to  the  feeling  for  the 
time  being  uppermost  in  his  mind.  From  several 
parts  of  the  "Tirocinium,"  it  would  certainly  seem 
that  he  regarded  the  whole  system  of  public-school 
teaching  not  only  with  speculative  disapproval,  but 
with  the  painful  hatred  of  a  painful  experience.  A 
thousand  genial  passages  in  his  private  letters,  how- 
ever, really  prove  the  contrary  ;  and  in  a  changing 
mood  of  mind,  the  very  poem  which  was  expressly 
written  to  "recommend  private  tuition  at  home" 
gives  some  idea  of  school  happiness. 

"Be  it  a  weakness,  it  deserves  some  praise,  — 
We  love  the  play-place  of  our  early  days  : 
The  scene  is  touching,  and  the  heart  is  stone 
That  feels  not  at  that  sight,  and  feels  at  none. 
The  wall  on  which  we  tried  our  graving  skill, 
The  very  name  we  carved  subsisting  still ; 
The  bench  on  which  we  sat  while  deep  employed, 
Though  mangled,  hacked,  and  hewed,  not  yet  destroyed ; 
The  little  ones,  unbuttoned,  glowing  hot, 
Playing  our  games,  and  on  the  very  spot, — 
As  happy  as  we  once  to  kneel  and  draw 
The  chalky  ring,  and  knuckle  down  at  taw, 
To  pitch  the  ball  into  the  grounded  hat 
Or  drive  it  devious  with  a  dexterous  pat : 
The  pleasing  spectacle  at  once  excites 
Such  recollection  of  our  own  delights, 
That  viewing  it,  we  seem  almost  to  obtain 
Our  innocent  sweet  simple  years  again. 
This  fond  attachment  to  the  well-known  place 
Whence  first  we  started  into  life's  long  race 
Maintains  its  hold  with  such  unfailing  sway, 
We  feel  it  e'en  in  age,  and  at  our  latest  day." 

Probably  we  pursue  an  insoluble  problem  in  seek- 
ing a  suitable  education  for  a  morbidly  melancholy 
mind.  At  first  it  seems  a  dreadful  thing  to  place  a 
gentle  and  sensitive  nature  in  contact,  in  familiar- 
ity [with],  and  even  under  the  rule  of,  coarse  and 
strong  buoyant  natures.  Nor  should  this  be  in  gen- 
eral attempted :  the  certain  result  is  present  suffering, 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  393 


and  the  expected  good  is  remote  and  disputable. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  no  artificial  difficulty  which  we 
here  encounter,  none  which  we  can  hope  by  educa- 
tional contrivances  to  meet  or  vanquish  ;  the  difficulty 
is  in  truth  the  existence  of  the  world.  It  is  the 
fact,  that  by  the  constitution  of  society  the  bold,  the 
vigorous,  and  the  buoyant  rise  and  rule ;  and  that 
the  weak,  the  shrinking,  and  the  timid  fall  and 
serve.  In  after  life,  in  the  actual  commerce  of  men, 
even  too  in  those  quiet  and  tranquil  pursuits  in  which 
a  still  and  gentle  mind  should  seem  to  be  under  the 
least  disadvantage,  —  in  philosophy  and  speculation,  — 
the  strong  and  active,  who  have  confidence  in  them- 
selves and  their  ideas,  acquire  and  keep  dominion.  It 
is  idle  to  expect  that  this  will  not  give  great  pain ; 
that  the  shrinking  and  timid,  who  are  often  just  as 
ambitious  as  others,  will  not  repine  ;  that  the  rough 
and  strong  will  not  often  consciously  inflict  griev- 
ous oppression,  —  will  not  still  more  often,  without 
knowing  it,  cause  to  more  tremulous  minds  a  refined 
suffering  which  their  coarser  texture-  could  never 
experience,  which  it  does  not  sympathize  with  nor 
comprehend.  Some  time  in  life  —  it  is  but  a  question 
of  a  very  few  years  at  most  —  this  trial  must  be 
undergone.  There  may  be  a  short  time,  more  or  less, 
of  gentle  protection  and  affectionate  care ;  but  the 
leveret  grows  old,  the  world  waits  at  the  gate,  the 
hounds  are  ready  and  the  huntsman  too,  and  there 
is  need  of  strength  and  pluck  and  speed.  Cowper 
indeed  himself,  as  we  have  remarked,  does  not,  on 
an  attentive  examination,  seem  to  have  suffered  ex- 
ceedingly. In  subsequent  years,  when  a  dark  cloud 
had  passed  over  him,  he  was  apt  at  times  to  exag- 
gerate isolated  days  of  melancholy  and  pain,  and 
fancy  that  the  dislike  which  he  entertained  for  the 
system  of  schools  by  way  of  speculative  principle  was 
in  fact  the  result  of  a  personal  and  suffering  expe- 
rience. But  as  we  shall  have  (though  we  shall  not 
in  fact  perhaps  use  them  all)  a  thousand  occasions 


394        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

to  observe,  he  had,  side  by  side  with  a  morbid 
and  melancholy  humor,  an  easy  nature,  which  was 
easily  satisfied  with  the  world  as  he  found  it,  was 
pleased  with  the  gayety  of  others,  and  liked  the 
sight  of  and  sympathy  with  the  more  active  enjoy- 
ments which  he  did  not  care  to  engage  in  or  to 
share.  Besides,  there  is  every  evidence  that  cricket 
and  marbles  (though  he  sometimes  in  his  narratives 
suppresses  the  fact,  in  condescension  to  those  of  his 
associates  who  believed  them  to  be  the  idols  of  wood 
and  stone  which  are  spoken  of  in  the  prophets)  really 
exercised  a  laudable  and  healthy  supremacy  over  his 
mind.  The  animation  of  the  scene  —  the  gay  alert- 
ness which  Gray  looked  back  on  so  fondly  in  long- 
years  of  soothing  and  delicate  musing  —  exerted,  as 
the  passage  which  we  cited  shows,  a  great  influence 
over  a  genius  superior  to  Gray's  in  facility  and  free- 
dom, though  inferior  in  the  "little  footsteps"*  of  the 
finest  fancy,  in  the  rare  and  carefully  hoarded  felici- 
ties unequaled  save  in  the  immeasurable  abundance 
of  the  greatest  writers.  Of  course  Cowper  was  un- 
happy at  school,  as  he  was  unhappy  always ;  and  of 
course  too  we  are  speaking  of  Westminster  only, — 
for  Mr.  Pitman  and  the  oculist  there  is  nothing  to 
say. 

In  scholarship  Cowper  seems  to  have  succeeded. 
He  was  not  indeed  at  all  the  sort  of  man  to  attain  to 
that  bold,  strong-brained,  confident  scholarship  which 
Bentley  carried  to  such  an  extreme,  and  which,  in 
almost  every  generation  since,  some  Englishman  has 
been  found  of  hard  head  and  stiff-clayed  memory 
to  keep  up  and  perpetuate  :  his  friend  Thurlow  was 
the  man  for  this  pursuit,  and  the  man  to  prolong  the 
just  notion  that  those  who  attain  early  proficiency 
in  it  are  likely  men  to  become  Lord  Chancellors. 


"  There  scattered  oftv  the  earliest  of  the  year, 
By  hands  uuseen  are  showers  of  violets  found ; 

The  redbreast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there, 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground." 

—  Verse  in  Gray's  "Elegy,"  canceled  by  him. 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  395 


Cowper's  scholarship  was  simply  the  general  and  del- 
icate impression  which  the  early  study  of  the  classics 
invariably  leaves  on  a  nice  and  susceptible  mind. 
In  point  of  information  it  was  strictly  of  a  common 
nature :  it  is  clear  that  his  real  knowledge  was 
mostly  confined  to  the  poets,  especially  the  ordinary 
Latin  poets  and  Homer,  and  that  he  never  bestowed 
any  regular  attention  on  the  historians  or  orators 
or  philosophers  of  antiquity,  either  at  school  or  in 
after  years.  Nor  indeed  would  such  a  course  of 
study  have  in  reality  been  very  beneficial  to  him : 
the  strong,  analytic,  comprehensive,  reason-giving 
powers  which  are  required  in  these  dry  and  rational 
pursuits  were  utterly  foreign  to  his  mind.  All  that 
was  congenial  to  him  he  acquired  in  the  easy  inter- 
vals of  apparent  idleness.  The  friends  whom  he 
made  at  Westminster,  and  who  continued  for  many 
years  to  be  attached  to  him,  preserved  the  probable 
tradition  that  he  was  a  gentle  and  gradual  rather 
than  a  forcible  or  rigorous  learner. 

The  last  hundred  years  have  doubtless  seen  a  vast 
change  in  the  common  education  of  the  common  boy. 
The  small  and  pomivorous  animal  which  we  so  call 
is  now  subjected  to  a  treatment  very  elaborate  and 
careful,  that  contrasts  much  with  the  simple  alter- 
nation of  classics  and  cuffs  which  was  formerly  so 
fashionable.  But  it  may  be  doubted  whether,  for  a 
peculiar  mind  such  as  Cowper's,  on  the  intellectual 
side  at  least,  the  tolerant  and  corpuscular  theory  of 
the  last  century  was  not  preferable  to  the  intolerant 
and  never-resting  moral  influence  that  has  succeeded 
to  it.  Some  minds  learn  most  when  they  seem  to 
learn  least ;  a  certain  placid,  unconscious,  equable 
intaking  of  knowledge  suits  them,  and  alone  suits 
them.  To  succeed  in  forcing  such  men  to  attain 
great  learning  is  simply  impossible  ;  for  you  cannot 
put  the  fawn  into  the  "Land  Transport."  The  only 
resource  is  to  allow  them  to  acquire  gently  and  cas- 
ually in  their  own  way  ;  and  in  that  way  they  will 


396  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.' 8  BAGEHOT. 

often  imbibe,  as  if   by  the  mere  force  of   existence, 
much  pleasant  and  well-fancied  knowledge. 

From  Westminster  Cowper  went  at  once  into  a 
solicitor's  office.  Of  the  next  few  years  (he  was 
then  about  eighteen)  we  do  not  know  much.  His 
attention  to  legal  pursuits  was,  according  to  his  own 
account,  not  very  profound ;  yet  it  could  not  have 
been  wholly  contemptible,  for  his  evangelical  friend 
Mr.  Newton  —  who,  whatever  may  be  the  worth  of 
his  religious  theories,  had  certainly  a  sound  rough 
judgment  on  topics  terrestrial  —  used  in  after  years 
to  have  no  mean  opinion  of  the  value  of  his  legal 
counsel.  In  truth,  though  nothing  could  be  more  out 
of  Cowper's  way  than  abstract  and  recondite  juris- 
prudence, an  easy  and  sensible  mind  like  his  would 
find  a  great  deal  which  was  very  congenial  to  it  in 
the  well-known  and  perfectly  settled  maxims  which 
regulate  and  rule  the  daily  life  of  common  men.  No 
strain  of  capacity  or  stress  of  speculative  intellect 
is  necessary  for  the  apprehension  of  these  :  a  fair 
and  easy  mind  which  is  placed  within  their  reach 
will  find  it  has  learnt  them,  without  knowing  when 
or  how. 

After  some  years  of  legal  instruction,  Cowper  chose 
to  be  called  to  the  bar,  and  took  chambers  in  the 
Temple  accordingly.  He  never,  however,  even  pre- 
tended to  practice :  he  passed  his  time  in  literary  soci- 
ety, in  light  study,  in  tranquil  negligence.  He  was 
intimate  with  Colman,  Lloyd,  and  other  wits  of  those 
times.  He  wrote  an  essay  in  the  Connoisseur,  —  the 
kind  of  composition  then  most  fashionable,  especially 
with  such  literary  gentlemen  as  were  most  careful 
not  to  be  confounded  with  the  professed  authors.  In 
a  word,  he  did  "  nothing,"  as  that  word  is  understood 
among  the  vigorous,  aspiring,  and  trenchant  part 
of  mankind.  Nobody  could  seem  less  likely  to  attain 
eminence ;  every  one  must  have  agreed  that  there 
was  no  harm  in  him,  and  few  could  have  named 
any  particular  good  which  it  was  likely  that  he 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  397 


•would  achieve.  In  after  days  he  drew  up  a  memoir 
of  his  life,  in  which  he  speaks  of  those  years  with 
deep  self-reproach.  It  was  not  indeed  the  secular  in- 
dolence of  the  time  which  excited  his  disapproval,— 
the  course  of  life  had  not  made  him  more  desirous 
of  worldly  honors,  but  less ;  and  nothing  could  be 
further  from  his  tone  of  feeling  than  regret  for  not 
having  strenuously  striven  to  attain  them.  He  spoke 
of  those  years  in  the  Puritan  manner,  using  words 
which  literally  express  the  grossest  kind  of  active 
atheism  in  a  vague  and  vacant  way;  leaving  us  to 
gather  from  external  sources  whether  they  are  to  be 
understood  in  their  plain  and  literal  signification,  or 
in  that  out-of-the-way  and  technical  sense  in  which 
they  hardly  have  a  meaning.  In  this  case  the  exter- 
nal evidence  is  so  clear  that  there  is  no  difficulty  : 
the  regrets  of  Cowper  had  reference  to  offenses 
which  the  healthy  and  sober  consciences  of  mankind 
will  not  consider  to  deserve  them ;  a  vague,  literary, 
omnitolerant  idleness  was  perhaps  their  worst  fea- 
ture. He  was  himself  obliged  to  own  that  he  had 
always  been  considered  "as  one  religiously  inclined, 
if  not  actually  religious " ;  *  and  the  applicable  testi- 
mony, as  well  as  the  whole  form  and  nature  of  his 
character,  forbid  us  to  ascribe  to  him  the  slightest 
act  of  license  or  grossness.  A  reverend  biographer 
has  called  his  life  at  this  time  "an  unhappy  com- 
pound of  guilt  and  wretchedness '' ;  f  but  unless  the 
estimable  gentleman  thinks  it  sinful  to  be  a  bar- 
rister and  -wretched  to  live  in  the  Temple,  it  is  not 
easy  to  make  out  what  he  would  mean.  In  point 
of  intellectual  cultivation,  and  with  a  view  to  pre- 
paring himself  for  writing  his  subsequent  works,  it 
is  not  possible  he  should  have  spent  his  time  better. 
He  then  acquired  that  easy,  familiar  knowledge  of 


*  Autobiography. 

t  The  nearest  approach  I  find  to  this  Is  Rev.  T.  Grimshawe's  "  This  vortex 
of  misery  and  ruin."  Cheever  (Lecture  v.)  talks  about  "depths  of  guilt 
and  misery";  but  his  book  was  not  published  till  1856.  —  ED. 


398  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

terrestrial  things,  the  vague  and  general  information 
of  the  superficies  of  all  existence, —  the  acquaintance 
with  life,  business,  hubbub,  and  rustling  matter  of 
fact,  —  which  seem  odd  in  the  recluse  of  Olney,  and 
enliven  so  effectually  the  cucumbers  of  the  "Task." 
It  has  been  said  that  at  times  every  man  wishes  to 
be  a  man  of  the  world,  and  even  the  most  rigid  critic 
must  concede  it  to  be  nearly  essential  to  a  writer 
on  real  life  and  actual  manners :  if  a  man  has  not 
seen  his  brother,  how  can  he  describe  him  ?  As  this 
world  calls  happiness  and  blamelessness,  it  is  not  easy 
to  fancy  a  life  more  happy  —  at  least  with  more  of 
the  common  elements  of  happiness  —  or  more  blame- 
less than  those  years  of  Cowper.  An  easy  temper, 
light  fancies  hardly  as  yet  broken  by  shades  of  mel- 
ancholy brooding,  an  enjoying  habit,  rich  humor, 
literary  but  not  pedantic  companions,  a  large  scene 
of  life  and  observation,  polished  acquaintance  and 
attached  friends,  —  these  were  his,  and  what  has  a 
light  life  more  ?  A  rough  hero  Cowper  was  not  and 
never  became  ;  but  he  was  then  as  ever  a  quiet  and 
tranquil  gentleman.  If  De  Beranger's  doctrine  were 
true,  "  Le  bonheur  tient  au  savoir-vivre,"  *  there  were 
the  materials  of  existence  here :  what  indeed  would 
not  De  Beranger  have  made  of  them  ? 

One  not  unnatural  result  or  accompaniment  of  such 
a  life  was,  that  Cowper  fell  in  love.  There  were  in 
those  days  two  young  ladies,  cousins  of  Cowper,  res- 
idents in  London,  to  one  of  whom  (the  Lady  Hesketh 
of  after  years)  he  once  wrote:  —  "My  dear  Cousin,— 
...  So  much  as  I  love  you,  I  wonder  how  ...  it  has 
happened  I  was  never  in  love  with  you."f  No  simi- 
lar providence  protected  his  intimacy  with  her  sister. 
Theodora  Cowper,  "one  of  those  cousins  with  whom 
he  and  Thurlow  used  to  giggle  and  make  giggle  in 
Southampton  Row,"J  was  a  handsome  and  vigorous 


*  "  Happiness  results  from  good  breeding." 

tAug.  9,  1763. 

tSouthey,  quoting  from  a  letter  of  Cowper  to  Lady  Hesketh. 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  399 


damsel.  "What!"  said  her  father,  "what  will  you 
do  if  you  marry  William  Cowper  ? "  meaning,  in  the 
true  parental  spirit,  to  intrude  mere  pecuniary  ideas. 
"Do,  sir!"  she  replied,  "wash  all  day,  and  ride  out 
on  the  great  dog  at  night ! "  a  spirited  combination 
of  domestic  industry  and  exterior  excitement.  It  is 
doubtful,  however,  whether  either  of  these  species 
of  pastime  and  occupation  would  have  been  exactly 
congenial  to  Cowper.  A  gentle  and  refined  indo- 
lence must  have  made  him  an  inferior  washerman; 
and  perhaps  to  accompany  the  canine  excursions  of 
a  wife  "which  clear-starched"  would  have  hardly 
seemed  enough  to  satisfy  his  accomplished  and  placid 
ambition.  At  any  rate,  it  certainly  does  seem  that 
he  was  not  a  very  vigorous  lover.  The  young  lady 
was,  as  he  himself  oddly  said, — 

"through  tedious  years  of  doubt  and  pain, 
Fixed  in  her  choice  and  faithful  .  .  .  but  in  vain. "  * 

The  poet  does  indeed  partly  allude  to  the  parental 
scruples  of  Mr.  Cowper,  her  father;  but  house-rent 
would  not  be  so  high  as  it  is  if  fathers  had  their 
way.  The  profits  of  builders  are  eminently  dependent 
on  the  uncontrollable  nature  of  the  best  affections; 
and  that  intelligent  class  of  men  have  had  a  table 
compiled  from  trustworthy  data,  in  which  the  chances 
of  parental  victory  are  rated  at  '0000000001  and  those 
of  the  young  people  themselves  at  '9999999999  —  in 
fact,  as  many  nines  as  you  can  imagine.  "  It  has 
been  represented  to  me,"  says  the  actuary,  "that  few 
young  people  ever  marry  without  some  objection, 
more  or  less  slight,  on  the  part  of  their  parents ;  and 
from  a  most  laborious  calculation,  from  data  collected 
in  quarters  both  within  and  exterior  to  the  bills  of 
mortality,  I  am  led  to  believe  that  the  above  figures 
represent  the  state  of  the  case  accurately  enough 
to  form  a  safe  guide  for  the  pecuniary  investments 

*  Scrap  of  verse  quoted  by  Southey  in  this  connection. 


400  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

of  the  gentlemen,"  etc.,  etc.  It  is  not  likely  that 
Theodora  Cowper  understood  decimals ;  but  she  had 
a  strong  opinion  in  favor  of  her  cousin,  and  a  great 
idea,  if  we  rightly  read  the  now  obscure  annals  of 
old  times,  that  her  father's  objections  might  pretty 
easily  have  been  got  over.  In  fact,  we  think  so  even 
now,  without  any  prejudice  of  affection,  in  our  cool 
and  mature  judgment.  Mr.  Cowper  the  aged  had 
nothing  to  say,  except  that  the  parties  were  cousins : 
a  valuable  remark,  which  has  been  frequently  re- 
peated in  similar  cases,  but  which  has  not  been  found 
to  prevent  a  mass  of  matches  both  then  and  since. 
Probably  the  old  gentleman  thought  the  young  gen- 
tleman by  no  means  a  working  man,  and  objected, 
believing  that  a  small  income  can  only  be  made  more 
by  unremitting  industry;  and  the  young  gentleman, 
admitting  this  horrid  and  abstract  fact,  and  agreeing 
(though  perhaps  tacitly)  in  his  uncle's  estimate  of 
his  personal  predilections,  did  not  object  to  being 
objected  to.  The  nature  of  Cowper  was  not  indeed 
passionate.  He  required  beyond  almost  any  man 
the  daily  society  of  amiable  and  cultivated  women ; 
jt  is  clear  that  he  preferred  such  gentle  excitement 
to  the  rough  and  argumentative  pleasures  of  more 
masculine  companionship ;  his  easy  and  humorous 
nature  loved  and  learned  from  female  detail :  but 
he  had  no  overwhelming  partiality  for  a  particular 
individual,  —  one  refined  lady,  the  first  moments  of 
shyness  over,  was  nearly  as  pleasing  as  another 
refined  lady.  Disappointment  sits  easy  on  such  a 
mind.  Perhaps  too  he  feared  the  anxious  duties,  the 
rather  contentious  tenderness  of  matrimonial  exist- 
ence. At  any  rate,  he  acquiesced.  Theodora  never 
married ;  love  did  not,  however,  kill  her  —  at  least 
if  it  did  it  was  a  long  time  at  the  task,  as  she  sur- 
vived these  events  more  than  sixty  years.  She  never, 
seemingly,  forgot  the  past. 

But  a  dark  cloud  was  at  hand.     If  there  be  any 
truly  painful  fact  about  the  world  now  tolerably  well 


WILLIAM  COW  PER.  401 


established  by  ample  experience  and  ample  records, 
it  is,  that  an  intellectual  and  indolent  happiness  is 
wholly  denied  to  the  children  of  men.  That  most 
valuable  author,  Lucretius,  who  has  supplied  us  and 
others  with  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  metaphors  on 
this  topic,  ever  dwells  on  the  life  of  his  gods  with  a 
sad  and  melancholy  feeling  that  no  such  life  was  pos- 
sible on  a  crude  and  cumbersome  earth.  In  general, 
the  two  opposing  agencies  are  marriage  and  [lack  of] 
money ;  either  of  these  breaks  the  lot  of  literary 
and  refined  inaction  at  once  and  forever.  The  first 
of  these,  as  we  have  seen,  Cowper  had  escaped :  his 
reserved  and  negligent  reveries  were  still  free,  at 
least  from  the  invasion  of  affection.  To  this  invasion, 
indeed,  there  is  commonly  requisite  the  acquiescence 
or  connivance  of  mortality;  but  all  men  are  born  — 
not  free  and  equal,  as  the  Americans  maintain,  but, 
in  the  Old  World  at  least  —  basely  subjected  to  the 
yoke  of  coin.  It  is  in  vain  that  in  this  hemisphere 
we  endeavor  after  impecuniary  fancies.  In  bold  and 
eager  youth  we  go  out  on  our  travels :  we  visit  Baal- 
bee  and  Paphos  and  Tadmor  and  Cythera,  —  ancient 
shrines  and  ancient  empires,  seats  of  eager  love  or 
gentle  inspiration ;  we  wander  far  and  long ;  we 
have  nothing  to  do  with  our  fellow-men,  — what  are 
we,  indeed,  to  diggers  and  counters  ?  we  wander  far, 
we  dream  to  wander  forever,  —  but  we  dream  in 
vain.  A  surer  force  than  the  subtlest  fascination  of 
fancy  is  in  operation :  the  purse-strings  tie  us  to 
our  kind.  Our  travel  coin  runs  low,  and  we  must 
return,  away  from  Tadmor  and  Baalbec,  back  to  our 
steady,  tedious  industry  and  dull  work,  to  "la  vieille 
Europe"  (as  Napoleon  said),  "qui  m'ennuie."*  It  is 
the  same  in  thought :  in  vain  we  seclude  ourselves  in 
elegant  chambers,  in  fascinating  fancies,  in  refined 
reflections.  "By  this  time,"  says  Cowper,  "my  patri- 
mony being  well-nigh  spent,  and  there  being  no  ap- 
pearance that  I  should  ever  repair  the  damage  by 

*"  Old  Europe,  which  bores  me." 
VOL.  I.— 26 


403  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

a  fortune  of  my  own  getting,  I  began  to  be  a  little 
apprehensive  of  approaching  want."  However  little 
one  is  fit  for  it,  it  is  necessary  to  attack  some  drudg- 
ery. The  vigorous  and  sturdy  rouse  themselves  to 
the  work;  they  find  in  its  regular  occupation,  clear 
decisions,  and  stern  perplexities,  a  bold  and  rude 
compensation  for  the  necessary  loss  or  diminution 
of  light  fancies  and  delicate  musings,— 

"Such  sights  as  youthful  poets  dream, 
On  summer  eves  by  haunted  stream."* 

But  it  was  not  so  with  Cowper :  a  peculiar  and 
slight  nature  unfitted  him  for  so  rough  and  harsh  a 
resolution.  The  lion  may  eat  straw  like  the  ox, 
and  the  child  put  his  head  on  the  cockatrice's  den; 
but  will  even  then  the  light  antelope  be  equal  to  the 
heavy  plow  ?  will  the  gentle  gazelle,  even  in  those 
days,  pull  the  slow  wagon  of  ordinary  occupation  ? 

The  outward  position  of  Cowper  was  indeed  sin- 
gularly fortunate.  Instead  of  having  to  meet  the 
long  labors  of  an  open  profession,  or  the  anxious 
decisions  of  a  personal  business,  he  had  the  choice 
among  several  lucrative  and  quiet  public  offices, 
in  which  very  ordinary  abilities  would  suffice,  and 
scarcely  any  degree  of  incapacity  would  entail  dis- 
missal or  reprimand  or  degradation.  It  seemed  at 
first  scarcely  possible  that  even  the  least  strenuous 
of  men  should  be  found  unequal  to  duties  so  little 
arduous  or  exciting.  He  has  himself  said, — 

"Lucrative  offices  are  seldom  lost 
For  want  of  powers  proportioned  to  the  post ; 
Give  e'en  a  dunce  the  employment  he  desires, 
And  he  soon  finds  the  talents  it  requires : 
A  business  with  an  income  at  its  heels 

Furnishes  always  oil  for  its  own  wheels."* 

The  place  he  chose  was  called  the  "clerkship  of  the 
journals  of  the  House  of  Lords,"  —  one  of  the  many 


*  Milton,  "L'Allegro."  t"  Retirement." 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  403 


quiet  haunts  which  then  slumbered  under  the  im- 
posing shade  of  parliamentary  and  aristocratic  privi- 
lege ;  yet  the  idea  of  it  was  more  than  he  could 
bear. 

"In  the  beginning,"  he  writes,  "a  strong  opposition  to  my 
friend's  right  of  nomination  began  to  show  itself.  A  powerful 
party  was  formed  among  the  Lords  to  thwart  it,  in  favor  of  an 
old  enemy  to  the  family,  though  one  much  indebted  to  his  bounty ; 
and  it  appeared  plain  that  if  we  succeeded  at  last,  it  could  only  be 
by  fighting  our  ground  by  inches.  Every  advantage,  I  was  told, 
would  be  sought  for,  and  eagerly  seized,  to  disconcert  us.  I  was 
bid  to  expect  an  examination  at  the  bar  of  the  House,  touching 
my  sufficiency  for  the  post  I  had  taken.  Being  necessarily  ignorant 
of  the  nature  of  that  business,  it  became  expedient  that  I  should 
visit  the  office  daily,  in  order  to  qualify  myself  for  the  strictest  scru- 
tiny. All  the  horror  of  my  fears  and  perplexities  now  returned : 
a  thunderbolt  would  have  been  as  welcome  to  me  as  this  intelli- 
gence. I  knew  to  demonstration  that  upon  these  terms  the  clerkship 
of  the  journals  was  no  place  for  me.  To  require  my  attendance 
at  the  bar  of  the  House,  that  I  might  there  publicly  entitle  myself 
to  the  office,  was  in  effect  to  exclude  me  from  it.  In  the  mean 
time,  the  interest  of  my  friend,  the  causes  of  his  choice,  and 
my  own  reputation  and  circumstances,  all  urged  me  forward,  all 
pressed  me  to  undertake  that  which  I  saw  to  be  impracticable.  They 
whose  spirits  are  formed  like  mine,  to  whom  a  public  exhibition 
of  themselves,  on  any  occasion,  is  mortal  poison,  may  have  some 
idea  of  the  horror  of  my  situation ;  others  can  have  none. 

"My  continual  misery  at  length  brought  on  a  nervous  fever; 
quiet  forsook  me  by  day,  and  peace  by  night ;  a  finger  raised  against 
me  was  more  than  I  could  stand  against.  In  this  posture  of  mind  I 
attended  regularly  at  the  office ;  where,  instead  of  a  soul  upon  the 
rack,  the  most  active  spirits  were  essentially  necessary  to  my  pur- 
pose. I  expected  no  assistance  from  any  one  there,  all  the  inferior 
clerks  being  under  the  influence  of  my  opponent ;  accordingly 
I  received  none.  The  journal  books  were  indeed  thrown  open  to 
me, —  a  thing  which  could  not  be  refused,  and  from  which  perhaps 
a  man  in  health,  and  with  a  head  turned  to  business,  might  have 
gained  all  the  information  he  wanted;  but  it  was  not  so  with  me: 
I  read  without  perception,  and  was  so  distressed  that  had  every 
clerk  in  the  office  been  my  friend,  it  could  have  availed  me  little; 
for  I  was  not  in  a  condition  to  receive  instruction,  much  less  to  elicit 
it  out  of  manuscripts  without  direction.  Many  months  went  over 


404  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

* 

me  thus  employed;  constant  in  the  use  of  means  despairing  as 
to  the  issue." 

As  the  time  of  trial  drew  near,  his  excitement 
rapidly  increased.  A  short  excursion  into  the  coun- 
try was  attended  with  momentary  benefit;  but  as 
soon  as  he  returned  to  town  he  became  immediately 
unfit  for  occupation,  and  as  unsettled  as  ever.  He 
grew  first  to  wish  to  become  mad,  next  to  believe 
that  he  should  become  so,  and  only  to  be  afraid 
that  the  expected  delirium  might  not  come  on  soon 
enough  to  prevent  his  appearance  for  examination  be- 
fore the  Lords,  —  a  fear,  the  bare  existence  of  which 
shows  how  slight  a  barrier  remained  between  him 
and  the  insanity  which  he  fancied  that  he  longed  for. 
He  then  began  to  contemplate  suicide,  and  not  un- 
naturally called  to  mind  a  curious  circumstance. 

"I  well  recollect,  too,"  he  writes,  "that  when  I  was  about  eleven 
years  of  age,  my  father  desired  me  to  read  a  vindication  of  self- 
murder  and  give  him  my  sentiments  upon  the  question :  I  did 
so,  and  argued  against  it.  My  father  heard  my  reasons,  and  was 
silent,  neither  approving  nor  disapproving ;  from  whence  I  inferred 
that  he  sided  with  the  author  against  me, — though  all  the  time, 
I  believe  the  true  motive  for  his  conduct  was,  that  he  wanted  if  he 
could  to  think  favorably  of  the  state  of  a  departed  friend,  who  had 
some  years  before  destroyed  himself,  and  whose  death  had  struck 
him  with  the  deepest  affliction.  But  this  solution  of  the  matter 
never  once  occurred  to  me,  and  the  circumstance  now  weighed 
mightily  with  me." 

And  he  made  several  attempts  to  execute  his  pur- 
pose, all  which  are  related  in  a  "Narrative"  which 
he  drew  up  after  his  recovery,  and  of  which  the 
elaborate  detail  shows  a  strange  and  most  painful 
tendency  to  revive  the  slightest  circumstances  of 
delusions  which  it  would  have  been  most  safe  and 
most  wholesome  never  to  recall.  The  curiously  care- 
ful style,  indeed,  of  the  narration,  as  elegant  as  that 
of  the  most  flowing  and  felicitous  letter,  reminds 
one  of  nothing  so  much  as  the  studiously  beautiful 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  405 


and  compact  handwriting  in  which  Rousseau  used 
to  narrate  and  describe  the  most  incoherent  and 
indefinite  of  his  personal  delusions.  On  the  whole, 
nevertheless, —  for  a  long  time,  at  least,  —  it  does  not 
seem  that  the  life  of  Cowper  was  in  real  danger. 
The  hesitation  and  indeterminateness  of  nerve  which 
rendered  him  liable  to  these  fancies,  and  unequal 
to  ordinary  action,  also  prevented  his  carrying  out 
these  terrible  visitations  to  their  rigorous  and  fearful 
consequences.  At  last,  however,  there  seems  to  have 
been  possible  if  not  actual  danger. 

"  Not  one  hesitating  thought  now  remained,  but  I  fell  greedily 
to  the  execution  of  my  purpose.  My  garter  was  made  of  a  broad 
scarlet  binding,  with  a  sliding  buckle,  being  sewn  together  at  the 
end ;  by  the  help  of  the  buckle  I  made  a  noose,  and  fixed  it  about 
my  neck,  straining  it  so  tight  that  I  hardly  left  a  passage  for  my 
breath  or  for  the  blood  to  circulate,  —  the  tongue  of  the  buckle  held 
it  fast.  At  each  corner  of  the  bed  was  placed  a  wreath  of  carved 
work,  fastened  by  an  iron  pin,  which  passed  up  through  the  midst 
of  it;  the  other  part  of  the  garter,  which  made  a  loop,  I  slipped 
over  one  of  these,  and  hung  by  it  some  seconds,  drawing  up  my 
feet  under  me,  that  they  might  not  touch  the  floor:  but  the  iron 
bent,  and  the  carved  work  slipped  off  and  the  garter  with  it.  I 
then  fastened  it  to  the  frame  of  the  tester,  winding  it  round  and 
tying  it  in  a  strong  knot;  the  frame  broke  short,  and  let  me  down 
again. 

"The  third  effort  was  more  likely  to  succeed.  I  set  the  door 
open,  which  reached  within  a  foot  of  the  ceiling,  and  by  the  help 
of  a  chair  I  could  command  the  top  of  it ;  and  the  loop,  being 
large  enough  to  admit  a  large  angle  of  the  door,  was  easily  fixed 
so  as  not  to  slip  off  again.  I  pushed  away  the  chair  with  my  feet, 
and  hung  at  my  whole  length.  While  I  hung  there,  I  distinctly 
heard  a  voice  say  three  times,  "Tis  over!"1  Though  I  am  sure 
of  the  fact,  and  was  so  at  the  time,  yet  it  did  not  at  all  alarm 
me,  or  affect  my  resolution.  I  hung  so  long  that  I  lost  all  sense, 
all  consciousness  of  existence. 

"When  I  came  to  myself  again,  I  thought  myself  in  hell;  the 
sound  of  my  own  dreadful  groans  was  all  that  I  heard,  and  a  feel- 
ing like  that  produced  by  a  flash  of  lightning  just  beginning  to 
seize  upon  me  passed  over  my  whole  body.  In  a  few  seconds  I 
found  myself  fallen  with  my  face  to  the  floor.  In  about  half  a 


406  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

minute  I  recovered  my  feet ;  and  reeling  and  staggering,  stumbled 
into  bed  again. 

"By  the  blessed  providence  of  God,  the  garter  which  had  held 
me  till  the  bitterness  of  temporal  death  was  past,  broke  just  before 
eternal  death  had  taken  place  upon  me.  The  stagnation  of  the  blood 
under  one  eye  in  a  broad  crimson  spot,  and  a  red  circle  about 
my  neck,  showed  plainly  that  I  had  been  on  the  brink  of  eternity. 
The  latter  indeed  might  have  been  occasioned  by  the  pressure  of 
the  garter ;  but  the  former  was  certainly  the  effect  of  strangulation, 
for  it  was  not  attended  with  the  sensation  of  a  bruise,  as  it  must 
have  been  had  I  in  my  fall  received  one  in  so  tender  a  part.  And 
I  rather  think  the  circle  round  my  neck  was  owing'  to  the  same 
cause ;  for  the  part  was  not  excoriated,  nor  at  all  in  pain. 

' '  Soon  after  I  got  into  bed,  I  was  surprised  to  hear  a  noise  in 
the  dining-room,  where  the  laundress  was  lighting  a  fire :  she  had 
found  the  door  unbolted,  notwithstanding  my  design  to  fasten  it,  and 
must  have  passed  the  bedchamber  door  while  I  was  hanging  on  it, 
and  yet  never  perceived  me.  She  heard  me  fall,  and  presently 
came  to  ask  if  I  was  well ;  adding,  she  feared  I  had  been  in  a  fit. 

"I  sent  her  to  a  friend,  to  whom  I  related  the  whole  affair, 
and  dispatched  him  to  my  kinsman  at  the  coffee-house.  As  soon  as 
the  latter  arrived,  I  pointed  to  the  broken  garter  which  lay  in  the 
middle  of  the  room,  and  apprised  him  also  of  the  attempt  I  had 
been  making.  His  words  were,  'My  dear  Mr.  Cowper,  you  terrify 
me !  To  be  sure  you  cannot  hold  the  office  at  this  rate,  —  where  is 
the  deputation?'  I  gave  him  the  key  of  the  drawer  where  it  was 
deposited,  and  his  business  requiring  his  immediate  attendance,  he 
took  it  away  with  him ;  and  thus  ended  all  my  connection  with  the 
Parliament  House."* 

It  must  have  been  a  strange  scene;  for  so  far  as 
appears,  the  outward  manners  of  Cowper  had  under- 
gone no  remarkable  change.  There  was  always  a 


*The  text  of  the  "Autobiography  "  forms  a  curious  little  bibliograph- 
ical puzzle.  Cowper  must  have  made  several  copies  for  various  friends. 
He  died  in  1800,  and  in  1816  a  London  house  printed  it  for  the  first  time. 
The  following  year  another  house  issued  it,  evidently  from  another  copy, 
as  the  text  of  the  two  varies  quite  a  little  in  spots.  Southey's  memoir 
was  published  in  1837,  and  in  it  he  incorporated  about  as  much  of  the 
"  Autobiography  "  as  Bagehot  does ;  but  as  his  text  does  not  conform  to 
either  of  the  printed  ones,  I  suppose  he  used  a  third  MS.  copy.  Bagehot's 
text,  characteristically,  does  not  agree  with  any  of  them,  and  is  in  fact  a 
melange  of  Southey  and  the  first  edition ;  but  as  most  of  it  is  taken  from 
the  latter,  I  have  conformed  the  text  to  that,  retaining  Bagehot's  (which  is 
Southey's)  paragraphing. — ED. 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  407 


mild  composure  about  them  which  would  have  de- 
ceived any  but  the  most  experienced  observer;  and 
it  is  probable  that  Major  Cowper,  his  "kinsman" 
and  intimate  friend,  had  very  little  or  no  suspicion  of 
the  conflict  which  was  raging  beneath  his  tranquil 
and  accomplished  exterior.  What  a  contrast  is  the 
"broad  scarlet  binding"  and  the  red  circle,  showing 
"plainly  that  I  had  been  on  the  brink  of  eternity," 
to  the  daily  life  of  the  easy  gentleman  "who  con- 
tributed some  essays  to  the  St.  James's  Magazine 
and  more  than  one  to  the  St.-  James's  Chronicle" 
living  "soft  years"  on  a  smooth  superficies  of  exist- 
ence, away  from  the  dark  realities  which  are  as  it 
were  the  skeleton  of  our  life,  which  seem  to  haunt 
us  like  a  death's-head  throughout  the  narrative  that 
has  been  quoted ! 

It  was  doubtless  the  notion  of  Cowper's  friends 
that  when  all  idea  of  an  examination  before  the 
Lords  was  removed,  by  the  abandonment  of  his 
nomination  to  the  office  in  question,  the  excitement 
which  that  idea  had  called  forth  would  very  soon 
pass  away ;  but  that  notion  was  an  error,  —  a  far 
more  complicated  state  of  mind  ensued.  If  we  may 
advance  a  theory  on  a  most  difficult  as  well  as  pain- 
ful topic,  we  would  say  that  religion  is  very  rarely 
the  proximate  or  impulsive  cause  of  madness.  The 
real  and  ultimate  cause  (as  we  speak)  is  of  course 
that  unknown  something  which  we  variously  call 
"predisposition"  or  "malady"  or  "defect";  but  the 
critical  and  exciting  cause  seems  generally  to  be 
some  comparatively  trivial  external  occasion  which 
falls  within  the  necessary  lot  and  life  of  the  person 
who  becomes  mad.  The  inherent  excitability  is  usu- 
ally awakened  by  some  petty  casual  stimulant  which 
looks  positively  not  worth  a  thought,  —  certainly  a 
terribly  slight  agent  for  the  wreck  and  havoc  which 
it  makes.  The  constitution  of  the  human  mind  is 
such  that  the  great  general  questions,  problems,  and 
difficulties  of  our  state  of  being  are  not  commonly 


408  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

capable  of  producing  that  result :  they  appear  to  lie 
too  far  in  the  distance,  to  require  too  great  a  stretch 
of  imagination,  to  be  too  apt  (for  the  very  weakness 
of  our  minds'  sake,  perhaps)  to  be  thrust  out  of  view 
by  the  trivial  occurrences  of  this  desultory  world, — 
to  be  too  impersonal,  in  truth,  to  cause  the  exclusive, 
anxious,  aching  occupation  which  is  the  common 
prelude  and  occasion  of  insanity.  Afterwards,  on  the 
other  hand,  when  the  wound  is  once  struck,  when 
the  petty  circumstance  has  been  allowed  to  work  its 
awful  consequence,  religion  very  frequently  becomes 
the  predominating  topic  of  delusion.  It  would  seem 
as  if,  when  the  mind  was  once  set  apart  by  the 
natural  consequences  of  the  disease,  and  secluded 
from  the  usual  occupations  of  and  customary  contact 
with  other  minds,  it  searched  about  through  all  the 
universe  for  causes  of  trouble  and  anguish.  A  cer- 
tain pain  probably  exists ;  and  even  in  insanity,  man 
is  so  far  a  rational  being  that  he  seeks  and  craves 
at  least  the  outside  and  semblance  of  a  reason  for  a 
suffering  which  is  really  and  truly  without  reason. 
Something  must  be  found  to  justify  its  anguish  to 
itself;  and  naturally  the  great  difficulties  inherent 
in  the  very  position  of  man  in  this  world,  and  try- 
ing so  deeply  the  faith  and  firmness  of  the  wariest 
and  wisest  minds,  are  ever  ready  to  present  plausible 
justifications  of  causeless  depression.  An  anxious 
melancholy  is  not  without  very  perplexing  sophisms 
and  very  painful  illustrations,  with  which  a  mor- 
bid mind  can  obtain  not  only  a  fair  logical  position, 
but  even  apparent  argumentative  victories,  on  many 
points,  over  the  more  hardy  part  of  mankind:  the 
acuteness  of  madness  soon  uses  these  in  its  own 
wretched  and  terrible  justification.  No  originality  of 
mind  is  necessary  for  so  doing :  great  and  terrible 
systems  of  divinity  and  philosophy  lie  round  about 
us,  which  if  true  might  drive  a  wise  man  mad, — 
which  read  like  professed  exculpations  of  a  contem- 
plated insanity. 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  409 

"  To  this  moment,"  writes  Cowper,  immediately 
after  the  passage  which  has  been  quoted,  "  I  had  felt 
no  concern  of  a  spiritual  kind ; "  but  now  a  convic- 
tion fell  upon  him  that  he  was  eternally  lost.  "All 
my  worldly  sorrows,"  he  says,  "seemed  now  as  though 
they  had  never  been,  the  terrors  of  my  mind  which 
succeeded  them  seemed  so  great  and  so  much  more 
afflicting.  One  moment  I  thought  myself  shut  out 
from  mercy  by  one  chapter,  and  the  next  by  another." 
He  thought  the  curse  of  the  barren  fig-tree  was  pro- 
nounced with  an  especial  and  designed  reference 
to  him.  All  day  long  these  thoughts  followed  him. 
He  lived  nearly  alone,  and  his  friends  were  either 
unaware  of  the  extreme  degree  to  which  his  mind 
was  excited,  or  unalive  to  the  possible  alleviation 
with  which  new  scenes  and  cheerful  society  might 
have  been  attended.  He  fancied  the  people  in  the 
street  stared  at  and  despised  him;  that  ballads  were 
made  in  ridicule  of  him ;  that  the  voice  of  his  con- 
science was  eternally  audible.  He  then  bethought 
him  of  a  Mr.  Madan,  an  evangelical  minister,  at  that 
time  held  in  much  estimation,  but  who  afterwards  fell 
into  disrepute  by  the  publication  of  a  work  on  mar- 
riage and  its  obligations  (or  rather  its  now-obligations) 
which  Cowper  has  commented  on  in  a  controver- 
sial poem.  That  gentleman  visited  Cowper  at  his  re- 
quest, and  began  to  explain  to  him  the  gospel. 

"He  spoke,"  says  Cowper,  "of  original  sin,  and  the  corruption 
of  every  man  born  into  the  world,  whereby  every  one  is  a  child  of 
wrath.  I  perceived  something  like  hope  dawn  in  my  heart.  This 
doctrine  set  me  more  upon  a  level  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  and 
made  my  condition  appear  less  desperate. 

"  Next  he  insisted  on  the  all-atoning  efficacy  of  the  blood  of 
Jesus,  and  his  righteousness,  for  our  justification.  While  I  heard 
this  part  of  his  discourse,  and  the  Scriptures  on  which  he  founded 
it,  my  heart  begun  to  burn  within  me;  my  soul  was  pierced  with  a 
sense  of  my  bitter  ingratitude  to  so  merciful  a  Saviour;  and  those 
tears  which  I  thought  impossible  burst  forth  freely.  I  saw  clearly 
that  my  case  required  such  a  remedy,  and  had  not  the  least  doubt 
within  me  but  that  this  was  the  gospel  of  salvation. 


410  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

"Lastly  he  urged  the  necessity  of  a  lively  faith  in  Jesus  Christ; 
not  an  assent  only  of  the  understanding,  but  a  faith  of  applica- 
tion, an  actual  laying  hold  of  it  and  embracing  it  as  a  salvation 
wrought  out  for  me  personally.  Here  I  failed,  and  deplored  my 
want  of  such  a  faith.  He  told  me  it  was  the  gift  of  God,  which 
he  trusted  He  would  bestow  upon  me.  I  could  only  reply,  '  I  wish 
he  would : '  a  very  irreverent  petition,  but  a  very  sincere  one,  and 
such  as  the  blessed  God  in  his  due  time  was  pleased  to  answer." 

It  does  not  appear  that  previous  to  this  con- 
versation he  had  ever  distinctly  realized  the  tenets 
which  were  afterwards  to  have  so  much  influence 
over  him.  For  the  moment  they  produced  a  good 
effect,  but  in  a  few  hours  their  novelty  was  over; 
the  dark  hour  returned,  and  he  awoke  from  slumber 
with  "a  stronger  alienation  from  God  than  ever." 
The  tenacity  with  which  the  mind  in  moments  of 
excitement  appropriates  and  retains  very  abstract 
tenets  that  bear  even  in  a  slight  degree  on  the  topic 
of  its  excitement,  is  as  remarkable  as  the  facility 
and  accuracy  with  which  it  apprehends  them  in  the 
midst  of  so  great  a  tumult.  Many  changes  and 
many  years  rolled  over  Cowper,  —  years  of  black 
and  dark  depression,  years  of  tranquil  society,  of 
genial  labor,  of  literary  fame ;  but  never  in  the 
lightest  or  darkest  hour  was  he  wholly  unconscious 
of  the  abstract  creed  of  Martin  Madan.  At  the 
time,  indeed,  the  body  had  its  rights  and  maintained 
them :  — 

"While  I  traversed  the  apartment,  in  the  most  horrible  dismay 
of  soul,  expecting  every  moment  that  the  earth  would  open  and 
swallow  me  up,  —  my  conscience  scaring  me,  the  avenger  of  blood 
pursuing  me,  and  the  city  of  refuge  out  of  reach  and  out  of  sight, — 
a  strange  and  horrible  darkness  fell  upon  me.  If  it  were  possible 
that  a  heavy  blow  could  light  on  the  brain  without  touching  the 
skull,  such  was  the  sensation  I  felt.  I  clapped  my  hand  to  my 
forehead,  and  cried  aloud,  through  the  pain  it  gave  me.  At  every 
stroke  my  thoughts  and  expressions  became  more  wild  and  in- 
coherent :  all  that  remained  clear  was  the  sense  of  sin  and  the 
expectation  of  punishment, — these  kept  undisturbed  possession  all 
through  my  illness,  without  interruption  or  abatement." 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  411 


It  is  idle  to  follow  details  further.  The  deep 
waters  had  passed  over  him,  and  it  was  long  before 
the  face  of  his  mind  was  dry  or  green  again. 

He  was  placed  in  a  lunatic  asylum,  where  he  con- 
tinued many  months,  and  which  he  left  apparently 
cured.  After  some  changes  of  no  moment,  but  which 
by  his  own  account  evinced  many  traces  of  danger- 
ous excitement,  he  took  up  his  abode  at  Huntingdon, 
with  the  family  of  Unwin ;  and  it  is  remarkable  how 
soon  the  taste  for  easy  and  simple  yet  not  wholly 
unintellectual  society,  which  had  formerly  character- 
ized him,  revived  again.  The  delineation  cannot  be 
given  in  any  terms  but  his  own :  — 

"We  breakfast  commonly  between  eight  and  nine;  till  eleven 
we  read  either  the  Scripture  or  the  sermons  of  some  faithful 
preacher  of  those  holy  mysteries ;  at  eleven  we  attend  divine  serv- 
ice, which  is  performed  here  twice  every  day ;  and  from  twelve 
to  three  we  separate,  and  amuse  ourselves  as  we  please.  During 
that  interval,  I  either  read  in  my  own  apartment,  or  walk,  or  ride, 
or  work  in  the  garden.  We  seldom  sit  an  hour  after  dinner,  but 
if  the  weather  permits,  adjourn  to  the  garden,  where  with  Mrs. 
Unwin  and  her  son  I  have  generally  the  pleasure  of  religious  con- 
versation till  tea-time.  If  it  rains,  or  is  too  windy  for  walking 
we  either  converse  within  doors,  or  sing  some  hymns  of  Martin's 
collection,  and  by  the  help  of  Mrs.  Unwin's  harpsichord  make  up 
a  tolerable  concert,  in  which  our  hearts,  I  hope,  are  the  best  and 
most  musical  performers.  After  tea  we  sally  forth  to  walk  in  good 
earnest.  Mrs.  Unwin  is  a  good  walker,  and  we  have  generally  trav- 
eled about  four  miles  before  we  see  home  again.  When  the  days 
are  short,  we  make  this  excursion  in  the  former  part  of  the  day, 
between  church  time  and  dinner.  At  night  we  read  and  converse 
as  before  till  supper,  and  commonly  finish  the  evening  either  with 
hymns  or  a  sermon,  and  last  of  all  the  family  are  called  to  prayers. 
I  need  not  tell  you  that  such  a  life  as  this  is  consistent  with  the 
utmost  cheerfulness ;  accordingly  we  are  all  happy,  and  dwell  to- 
gether in  unity  as  brethren.  Mrs.  Unwin  has  almost  a  maternal 
affection  for  me,  and  I  have  something  very  like  a  filial  one  for 
her,  and  her  son  and  I  are  brothers.  Blessed  be  the  God  of  our 
salvation  for  such  companions,  and  for  such  a  life,  —  above  all,  for 
a  heart  to  like  it."* 


*  Letter  to  Mrs.  Cowper,  Oct.  20,  1766. 


412  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

The  scene  was  not,  however,  to  last  as  it  was. 
Mr.  Uiiwin,  the  husband  of  Mrs.  Unwiii,  was  sud- 
denly killed  soon  after,  and  Cowper  removed  with 
Mrs.  Uiiwin  to  Olney,  where  a  new  epoch  of  his 
life  begins. 

The  curate  of  Olney  at  this  time  was  John 
Newton. :  a  man  of  great  energy  of  mind,  and  well 
known  in  his  generation  for  several  vigorous  books 
and  still  more  for  a  very  remarkable  life.  He  had 
been  captain  of  a  Liverpool  slave-ship,  an  occupation 
in  which  he  had  quite  energy  enough  to  have  suc- 
ceeded ;  but  was  deeply  influenced  by  serious  motives, 
and  became  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  active 
of  the  Low  Church  clergymen  of  that  day.  He  was 
one  of  those  men  who  seem  intended  to  make  excel- 
lence disagreeable.  He  was  a  converting  engine :  the 
whole  of  his  own  enormous  vigor  of  body,  the  whole 
steady  intensity  of  a  pushing,  impelling,  compelling, 
unoriginal  mind,  all  the  mental  or  corporeal  exer- 
tion he  could  exact  from  the  weak  or  elicit  from 
the  strong, — were  devoted  to  one  sole  purpose,  the 
effectual  impact  of  the  Calvinistic  tenets  on  the 
parishioners  of  Olney.  Nor  would  we  hint  that  his 
exertions  were  at  all  useless :  there  is  no  denying 
that  there  is  a  certain  stiff,  tough,  agricultural,  clay- 
ish  English  nature,  on  which  the  aggressive  divine 
produces  a  visible  and  good  effect ;  the  hardest  and 
heaviest  hammering  seems  required  to  stir  and  warm 
that  close  and  coarse  matter.  To  impress  any  sense 
of  the  supernatural  on  so  secular  a  substance  is  a 
great  good,  though  that  sense  be  expressed  in  false 
or  irritating  theories.  It  is  unpleasant^^xdoubt,  to 
hear  the  hammering ;  the  bystanders  are  in  an  evil 
case :  you  might  as  well  live  near  an  iron-ship  yard. 
Still,  the  blows  do  not  hurt  the  iron :  something  of 
the  sort  is  necessary  to  beat  the  coarse  ore  into  a 
shining  and  useful  shape ;  certainly  that  does  so 
beat  it.  But  the  case  is  different  when  the  hundred- 
handed  divine  desires  to  hit  others :  the  very  system 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  413 


which  on  account  of  its  hard  blows  is  adapted  to  the 
tough  and  ungentle,  is  by  that  very  reason  unfit  for 
the  tremulous  and  tender;  the  nature  of  many  men 
and  many  women  is  such  that  it  will  not  bear  the 
daily  and  incessant  repetition  of  some  certain  and 
indisputable  truths.  The  universe  has  of  course  its 
dark  aspect;  many  tremendous  facts  and  difficulties 
can  be  found,  which  often  haunt  the  timid  and  some- 
times incapacitate  the  feeble :  to  be  continually  in- 
sisting on  these,  and  these  only,  will  simply  render 
both  more  and  more  unfit  for  the  duties  to  which 
they  were  born.  And  if  this  is  the  case  with  cer- 
tain fact  and  clear  truth,  how  much  more  with  un- 
certain error  and  mystic  exaggeration !  Mr.  Newton 
was  alive  to  the  consequence  of  his  system:  —  "I  be- 
lieve my  name  is  up  about  the  country  for  preaching 
people  mad;  for  whether  it  is  owing  to  the  seden- 
tary life  the  women  lead  here,  ...  I  suppose  we 
have  near  a  dozen  in  different  degrees  disordered 
in  their  heads,  and  most  of  them,  I  believe,  truly 
gracious  people" *  He  perhaps  found  his  peculiar 
views  more  generally  appreciated  among  this  class  of 
young  ladies  than  among  more  healthy  and  rational 
people ;  and  clearly  did  not  wholly  condemn  the  de- 
livering them,  even  at  this  cost,  from  the  tyranny  of 
the  "carnal  reason." 

No  more  dangerous  adviser,  if  this  world  had 
been  searched  over,  could  have  been  found  for  Cow- 
per.  What  the  latter  required  was  prompt  encour- 
agement to  cheerful  occupation,  quiet  amusement, 
gentle  and  unexhausting  society.  Mr.  Newton  thought 
otherwise.  His  favorite  motto  was,  Perimus  in 
licitis;\  the  simple  round  of  daily  pleasures  and 
genial  employments  which  give  instinctive  happiness 
to  the  happiest  natures,  and  best  cheer  the  common 
life  of  common  men,  was  studiously  watched  and 
scrutinized  with  the  energy  of  a  Puritan  and  the 


*  Letter  to  Thornton,  In  Southey,  near  close  of  Chap.  viit. 
t"We  perish  among  pleasures." 


THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


watchfulness  of  an  inquisitor.  Mr.  Newton  had  all 
the  tastes  and  habits  which  go  to  form  what  in  the 
Catholic  system  is  called  a  "spiritual  director."  Of 
late  years  it  is  well  known  that  the  institution 
(or  rather  practice)  of  confession  has  expanded  into 
a  more  potent  and  more  imperious  organization  :  you 
are  expected  by  the  priests  of  the  Roman  Church 
not  only  to  confess  to  them  what  you  have  done,  but 
to  take  their  advice  as  to  what  you  shall  do;  the  fu- 
ture is  under  their  direction,  as  the  past  was  beneath 
their  scrutiny.  This  was  exactly  the  view  which  Mr. 
Newton  took  of  his  relation  to  Cowper.  A  natural 
aptitude  for  dictation,  a  steady,  strong,  compelling 
decision,  great  self-command,  and  a  sharp  perception 
of  all  impressible  points  in  the  characters  of  others, 
made  the  task  of  guiding  "weaker  brethren"  a  nat- 
ural and  pleasant  pursuit.  To  suppose  a  shrinking, 
a  wounded,  and  [a]  tremulous  mind,  like  that  of 
Cowper's,  would  rise  against  such  bold  dogmatism, 
such  hard  volition,  such  animal  nerve,  is  to  fancy 
that  the  beaten  slave  will  dare  the  lash  which  his 
very  eyes  instinctively  fear  and  shun.  Mr.  Newton's 
great  idea  was  that  Cowper  ought  to  be  of  some  use  : 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  excellent  hammering  ham- 
mered in  the  parish,  and  it  was  sinful  that  a  man 
with  nothing  to  do  should  sit  tranquil*.  Several  per- 
sons in  the  street  had  done  what  they  ought  not  ; 
foot-ball  was  not  unknown  ;  cards  were  played  ;  flirt- 
ation was  not  conducted  "  improvingly  "  :  it  was 
clearly  Cowper's  duty  to  put  a  stop  to  such  things. 
Accordingly  he  made  him  a  parochial  implement  : 
he  set  him  to  visit  painful  cases,  to  attend  at  prayer 
meetings,  to  compose  melancholy  hymns,  even  to  con- 
duct or  share  in  conducting  public  services  himself. 
It  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  him  that  so  fragile 
a  mind  would  be  unequal  to  the  burden,  —  that  a 
bruised  reed  does  often  break  ;  or  rather,  if  it  did 
occur  to  him,  he  regarded  it  as  a  subterranean  sug- 
gestion, and  expected  a  supernatural  interference  to 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  415 


counteract  the  events  at  which  it  hinted.  Yet  there 
are  certain  rules  and  principles  in  this  world  which 
seem  earthly,  but  which  the  most  excellent  may  not 
on  that  account  venture  to  disregard.  The  conse- 
quence of  placing  Cowper  in  exciting  situations  was 
a  return  of  his  excitement.  It  is  painful  to  observe 
that  though  the  attack  resembled  in  all  its  main  fea- 
tures his  former  one,  several  months  passed  before 
Mr.  Newton  would  permit  any  proper  physical  rem- 
edies to  be  applied,  and  then  it  was  too  late.  We 
need  not  again  recount  details  :  many  months  of  dark 
despondency  were  to  be  passed  before  he  returned 
to  a  simple  and  rational  mind. 

The  truth  is,  that  independently  of  the  personal 
activity  and  dauntless  energy  which  made  Mr.  New- 
ton so  little  likely  to  sympathize  with  such  a  mind 
as  Cowper's,  the  former  lay  under  a  still  more  dan- 
gerous disqualification  for  Cowper's  predominant 
adviser ;  viz. ,  an  erroneous  view  of  his  case.  His 
opinion  exactly  coincided  with  that  which  Cowper 
first  heard  from  Mr.  Madan  during  his  first  illness 
in  London.  This  view  is,  in  substance,  that  the 
depression  which  Cowper  originally  suffered  from 
was  exactly  what  almost  all  mankind,  if  they  had 
been  rightly  aware  of  their  true  condition,  would 
have  suffered  also.  They  were  "children  of  wrath," 
just  as  he  was ;  and  the  only  difference  between 
them  was,  that  he  appreciated  his  state  and  they 
did  not,  —  showing  in  fact  that  Cowper  was  not,  as 
common  persons  imagined,  on  the  extreme  verge  of 
insanity,  but  on  the  contrary  a  particularly  rational 
and  right-seeing  man.*  So  far,  Cowper  says,  with  one 
of  the  painful  smiles  which  make  his  "Narrative" 
so  melancholy,  '"my  condition  was  less  desperate;" 
that  is,  his  counselors  had  persuaded  him  that  his 
malady  was  rational,  and  his  sufferings  befitting  his 
true  position,  —  no  difficult  task,  for  they  had  the 


*The  same  nonsense,  set  off  with  much  virulent  sarcasm,  Is  the  entire 
burden  and  ration  d'etre  of  Dr.  Cheever's  Lectures  on  Cowper.  —  ED. 


416  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.    CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

poignancy  of  pain  and  the  pertinacity  of  madness  on 
their  side.  The  efficacy  of  their  arguments  was  less 
when  they  endeavored  to  make  known  the  sources  of 
consolation.  We  have  seen  the  immediate  effect  of 
the  first  exposition  of  the  evangelical  theory  of  faith. 
When  applied  to  the  case  of  the  morbidly  despairing 
sinner,  that  theory  has  one  argumentative  imperfec- 
tion which  the  logical  sharpness  of  madness  will  soon 
discover  and  point  out.  The  simple  reply  is,  "I  do 
not  feel  the  faith  which  you  describe.  I  wish  I  could 
feel  it;  but  it  is  no  use  trying  to  conceal  the  fact,  I 
am  conscious  of  nothing  like  it."  And  this  was  sub- 
stantially Cowper's  reply  on  his  first  interview  with 
Mr.  Madan ;  it  was  a  simple  denial  of  a  fact  solely 
accessible  to  his  personal  consciousness,  and  as  such 
unanswerable  :  and  in  this  intellectual  position  (if 
such  it  can  be  called)  his  mind  long  rested.  At 
the  commencement  of  his  residence  at  Olney,  how- 
ever, there  was  a  decided  change.  Whether  it  were 
that  he  mistook  the  glow  of  physical  recovery  for  the 
peace  of  spiritual  renovation,  or  that  some  subtler 
and  deeper  agency  was,  as  he  supposed,  at  work, 
the  outward  sign  is  certain ;  and  there  is  no  question 
but  that  during  the  first  months  of  his  residence  at 
Olney,  and  his  daily  intercourse  with  Mr.  Newton, 
he  did  feel  or  supposed  himself  to  feel  the  faith 
which  he  was  instructed  to  deem  desirable,  and  he 
lent  himself  with  natural  pleasure  to  the  diffusion 
of  it  among  those  around  him.  But  this  theory  of 
salvation  requires  a  metaphysical  postulate  which 
to  many  minds  is  simply  impossible.  A  prolonged 
meditation  on  unseen  realities  is  sufficiently  difficult, 
and  seems  scarcely  the  occupation  for  which  common 
human  nature  was  intended ;  but  more  than  this  is 
said  to  be  essential,  —  the  meditation  must  be  success- 
ful in  exciting  certain  feelings  of  a  kind  peculiarly 
delicate,  subtle,  and  (so  to  speak)  unstable.  ''The 
wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth;"*  but  it  is  scarcely 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  417 


more  partial,  more  quick,  more  unaccountable,  than 
the  glow  of  an  emotion  excited  by  a  supernatural 
and  unseen  object :  this  depends  on  the  vigor  of 
imagination  which  has  to  conceive  that  object,  on 
the  vivacity  of  feeling  which  has  to  be  quickened  by 
it,  on  the  physical  energy  which  has  to  support  it; 
the  very  watchfulness,  the  scrupulous  anxiety  to 
find  and  retain  the  feeling  are  exactly  the  most 
unfavorable  to  it.  In  a  delicate  disposition  like  that 
of  Cowper,  such  feelings  revolt  from  the  inquisition 
of  others  and  shrink  from  the  stare  of  the  mind 
itself.  But  even  this  was  not  the  worst :  the  mind 
of  Cowper  was,  so  to  speak,  naturally  terrestrial.  If 
a  man  wishes  for  a  nice  appreciation  of  the  details 
of  time  and  sense,  let  him  consult  Cowper's  miscella- 
neous letters.  Each  simple  event  of  every  day,  each 
petty  object  of  external  observation  or  inward  sug- 
gestion, is  there  chronicled  with  a  fine  and  female 
fondness,  —  a  wise  and  happy  faculty,  let  us  say, 
of  deriving  a  gentle  happiness  from  the  tranquil 
and  passing  hour.  The  fortunes  of  the  hares,  —  Bess 
who  died  young,  and  Tiney  who  lived  to  be  nine 
years  old;  the  miller  who  engaged  their  affections  at 
once,  his  powdered  coat  having  charms  that  were 
irresistible ;  the  knitting-needles  of  Mrs.  Unwin ;  the 
qualities  of  his  friend  Hill,  who  managed  his  money 
transactions,  — 

"An  honest  man,  close  buttoned  to  the  chin, 
Broadcloth  without,  and  a  warm  heart  within," — 

live  in  his  .pages,  and  were .  the  natural,  insensible, 
unbiased  occupants  of  his  fancy.  It  is  easy  for  a 
firm  and  hard  mind  to  despise  the  minutiae  of  life, 
and  to  pore  and  brood  over  an  abstract  proposition  ; 
it  may  be  possible  for  the  highest,  the  strongest,  the 
most  arduous  imagination  to  live  aloof  from  common 
things,  alone  with  the  unseen  world,  as  some  live 
their  whole  lives  in  memory  with  a  world  which  has 
passed  away :  but  it  seems  hardly  possible  that  an 
VOL.  I. —  27 


418  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

imagination  such  as  Cowper's  —  which  was  rather  a 
detective  fancy,  perceiving  the  charm  'and  essence 
of  things  which  are  seen,  than  an  eager,  actuating, 
conceptive  power,  embodying,  enlivening,  empower- 
ing those  which  are  not  seen  —  should  leave  its  own 
home,  the  domus  et  tellus,  the  sweet  fields  and  rare 
orchards  which  it  loved,  and  go  out  alone,  apart 
from  all  flesh,  into  the  trackless  and  fearful  and 
unknown  Infinite.  Of  course  his  timid  mind  shrank 
from  it  at  once,  and  returned  to  its  own  fireside. 
After  a  little,  the  idea  that  he  had  a  true  faith  faded 
away.  Mr.  Newton,  with  misdirected  zeal,  sought 
to  revive  it  by  inciting  him  to  devotional  composi- 
tion; but  the  only  result  was  the  volume  of  "Olney 
Hymns," — a  very  painful  record,  of  which  the  bur- 
den is, — 

"My  former  hopes  are  fled, 

My  terror  now  begins ; 
I  feel,  alas!  that  I  am  dead 
In  trespasses  and  sins. 

"Ah,  whither  shall  I  fly? 

I  hear  the  thunder  roar; 
The  law  proclaims  destruction  nigh, 
And  vengeance  at  the  door." 

"The  Preacher"  himself  did  not  conceive  such  a 
store  of  melancholy  forebodings. 

The  truth  is,  that  there  are  two  remarkable  spe- 
cies of  minds  on  which  the  doctrine  of  Calvinism 
acts  as  a  deadly  and  fatal  poison. 

One  is  the  natural,  vigorous,  bold,  defiant,  hero- 
like  character,  abounding  in  generosity,  in  valor, 
in  vigor,  and  abounding  also  in  self-will  and  pride 
and  scorn.  This  is  the  temperament  which  supplies 
the  world  with  ardent  hopes  and  keen  fancies,  with 
springing  energies  and  bold  plans  and  noble  exploits ; 
but  yet,  under  another  aspect  and  in  other  times,  is 
equally  prompt  in  desperate  deeds,  awful  machina- 
tions, deep  and  daring  crimes.  It  one  day  is  ready 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  419 


by  its  innate  heroism  to  deliver  the  world  from  any 
tyranny;  the  next  it  "hungers  to  become  a  tyrant" 
in  its  turn.  Yet  the  words  of  the  poet  are  ever 
true  and  are  ever  good,  as  a  defense  against  \he 
cold  narrators  who  mingle  its  misdeeds  and  exploits, 
and  profess  to  believe  that  each  is  a  set-off  and 
compensation  for  the  other.  You  can  ever  say, — 

"Still  he  retained, 

'Mid  much  abasement,  what  he  had  received 
From  nature,  —  an  intense  and  glowing  mind."* 

It  is  idle  to  tell  such  a  mind  that  by  an  arbitrary, 
irrespective  election  it  is  chosen  to  happiness  or 
doomed  to  perdition.  The  evil  and  the  good  in  it 
equally  revolt  at  such  terms.  It  thinks,  "Well,  if 
the  universe  be  a  tyranny, — if  one  man  is  doomed  to 
misery  for  no  fault  and  the  next  is  chosen  to  pleas- 
ure for  no  merit,  if  the  favoritism  of  time  be  copied 
into  eternity,  if  the  highest  heaven  be  indeed  like 
the  meanest  earth,  —  then,  as  the  heathen  say,  it  is 
better  to  suffer  injustice  than  to  inflict  it,  better  to 
be  the  victims  of  the  eternal  despotism  than  its  min- 
isters, better  to  curse  in  hell  than  serve  in  heaven." 
And  the  whole  burning  soul  breaks  away  into  what 
is  well  called  "  Satanism,"  -  into  wildness  and  bitter- 
ness and  contempt. 

Cowper  had  as  little  in  common  with  this  proud, 
Titanic,  aspiring  genius  as  any  man  has  or  can  have ; 
but  his  mind  was  equally  injured  by  the  same  sys- 
tem. On  a  timid,  lounging,  gentle,  acquiescent  mind 
the  effect  is  precisely  the  contrary,  —  singularly  con- 
trasted, but  equally  calamitous.  "I  am  doomed,  you 
tell  me,  already.  One  way  or  other  the  matter  is 
already  settled.  It  can  be  no  better,  and  it  is  as  bad 
as  it  can  be.  Let  me  alone;  do  not  trouble  me  at 
least  these  few  years.  Let  me  at  least  sit  sadly  and 
bewail  myself.  Action  is  useless :  I  will  brood  upon 
my  melancholy  and  be  at  rest."  The  soul  sinks  into 

*  Wordsworth,  "Excursion,"  Book  i. 


420  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAUKHOT. 

"passionless  calm  and  silence  imreproved,"  *  flinging 
away  "the  passionate  tumult  of  a  clinging  hope"f 
which  is  the  allotted  boon  and  happiness  of  mor- 
tality. It  was,  as  we  believe,  straight  towards  this 
terrible  state  that  Mr.  Newton  directed  Cowper.  He 
kept  him  occupied  with  subjects  which  were  too  great 
for  him ;  he  kept  him  away  from  his  natural  life ; 
he  presented  to  him  views  and  opinions  but  too  well 
justifying  his  deep  and  dark  insanity;  he  convinced 
him  that  he  ought  to  experience  emotions  which  were 
foreign  to  his  nature;  he  had  nothing  to  add  by 
way  of  comfort  when  told  that  those  emotions  did 
not  and  could  not  exist.  Cowper  seems  to  have  felt 
this :  his  second  illness  commenced  with  a  strong  dis- 
like to  his  spiritual  adviser,  and  it  may  be  doubted 
if  there  ever  was  again  the  same  cordiality  between 
them.  Mr.  Newton,  too,  as  was  natural,  was  vexed 
at  Cowper's  calamity:  his  reputation  in  the  "religious 
world"  was  deeply  pledged  to  conducting  this  most 
"interesting  case"  to  a  favorable  termination;  a 
failure  was  not  to  be  contemplated,  and  yet  it  was 
obviously  coming  and  coming.  It  was  to  no  purpose 
that  Cowper  acquired  fame  and  secular  glory  in 
the  literary  world :  this  was  rather  adding  gall  to 
bitterness.  The  unbelievers  in  evangelical  religion 
would  be  able  to  point  to  one  at  least,  and  that  the 
best  known  among  its  proselytes,  to  whom  it  had 
not  brought  peace, —  whom  it  had  rather  confirmed 
in  wretchedness.  His  literary  fame,  too,  took  Cowper 
away  into  a  larger  circle,  out  of  the  rigid  decrees 
and  narrow  ordinances  of  his  father  confessor;  and 
of  course  the  latter  remonstrated.  Altogether  there 
was,  not  a  cessation  but  a  decline  and  diminution 
of  intercourse.  But  better,  according  to  the  saying, 
had  they  "never  met  or  never  parted"  :J  if  a  man  is 
to  have  a  father  confessor,  let  him  at  least  choose 

•Shelley,  "The  Sunset." 

t Shelley,  "Alastor,"  near  the  close. 

I  Burns,  "Fare  thee  weel,  thou  best  and  dearest." 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  421 


a  sensible  one.  The  dominion  of  Mr.  Newton  had 
been  exercised,  not  indeed  with  mildness  or  wisdom 
or  discrimination,  but  nevertheless  with  strong  judg- 
ment and  coarse  acumen ;  with  a  bad  choice  of  ends, 
but  at  least  a  vigorous  selection  of  means :  after- 
wards it  was  otherwise.  In  the  village  of  Olney  there 
was  a  schoolmaster  whose  name  often  occurs  in  Cow- 
per's  letters, — a  foolish,  vain,  worthy  sort  of  man; 
what  the  people  of  the  West  call  a  "scholard,"- 
that  is,  a  man  of  more  knowledge  and  less  sense 
than  those  about  him.  He  sometimes  came  to  Cow- 
per  to  beg  old  clothes,  sometimes  to  instruct  him 
with  literary  criticisms;  and  is  known  in  the  "Corre- 
spondence" as  "Mr.  Teedon,  who  reads  the  Monthly 
Review"  "Mr.  Teedon,  whose  smile  is  fame."*  Yet 
to  this  man,  whose  harmless  follies  his  humor  had 
played  with  a  thousand  times,  Cowper,  in  his  later 
years,  and  when  the  dominion  of  Mr.  Newton  had 
so  far  ceased  as  to  leave  him  after  many  years  the 
use  of  his  own  judgment,  resorted  for  counsel  and 
guidance.  And  the  man  had  visions  and  dreams  and 
revelations ! !  But  enough  of  such  matters. 

The  peculiarity  of  Cowper's  life  is,  its  division 
into  marked  periods.  From  his  birth  to  his  first  ill- 
ness he  may  be  said  to  have  lived  in  one  world, 
and  for  some  twenty  years  afterwards  —  from  his 
thirty-second  to  about  his  fiftieth  year  —  in  a  wholly 
distinct  one.  Much  of  the  latter  time  was  spent  in 
hopeless  despondency.  His  principal  companions  dur- 
ing that  period  were  Mr.  Newton,  about  whom  we 
have  been  writing,  and  Mrs.  Unwin,  who  may  be 
said  to  have  broken  the  charmed  circle  of  seclusion 
in  which  they  lived  by  inciting  Cowper  to  continuous 
literary  composition.  Of  Mrs.  Unwin  herself  ample 
memorials  remain.  She  was  in  truth  a  most  excel- 
lent person :  in  mind  and  years  much  older  than 
the  poet,  —  as  it  were,  by  profession  elderly :  able  in 
every  species  of  preserve,  profound  in  salts  and  pans 


*The  second  quotation  is  real,  the  flrst  imaginary.  — ED. 


422        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  jellies;  culinary  by  taste;  by  tact  and  instinct 
motherly  and  housewifish.  She  was  not,  however, 
without  some  less  larderiferous  qualities :  Lady  Hes- 
keth  and  Lady  Austen,  neither  of  them  very  favorably 
prejudiced  critics,  decided  so.  The  former  has  writ- 
ten : — "She  is  very  far  from  grave;  on  the  contrary, 
she  is  cheerful  and  gay,  and  laughs  de  bon  cceur  upon 
the  smallest  provocation.  Amidst  all  the  little  puri- 
tanical words  which  fall  from  her  de  terns  en  terns, 
she  seems  to  have  by  nature  a  great  fund  of  gayety. 
...  I  must  say,  too,  that  she  seems  to  be  very  well 
read  in  the  English  poets,  as  appears  by  several  little 
quotations  which  she  makes  from  time  to  time,  and 
has  a  true  taste  for  what  is  excellent  in  that  way."  * 
This  she  showed  by  persuading  Cowper  to  the  compo- 
sition of  his  first  volume. 

As  a  poet,  Cowper  belongs  (though  with  some 
differences)  to  the  school  of  Pope.  Great  question, 
as  is  well  known,  has  been  raised  whether  that  very 
accomplished  writer  was  a  poet  at  all ;  and  a  second- 
ary and  equally  debated  question  runs  side  by  side, — 
whether,  if  a  poet,  he  were  a  great  one.  With  the 
peculiar  genius  and  personal  rank  of  Pope  we  have 
in  this  article  nothing  to  do;  but  this  much  may 
be  safely  said, — that  according  to  the  definition 
which  has  been  ventured  of  the  poetical  art  by  the 
greatest  and  most  accomplished  master  of  the  other 
school,  his  works  are  delicately  finished  specimens  of 
artistic  excellence  in  one  branch  of  it.  "Poetry," 
says  Shelley,  who  was  surely  a  good  judge,  "is  the 
expression  of  the  imagination";!  by  which  he  meant 
of  course  not  only  the  expression  of  the  interior 
sensations  accompanying  the  faculty's  employment, 
but  likewise,  and  more  emphatically,  the  exercise  of 
it  in  the  delineation  of  objects  which  attract  it. 
Now,  society  viewed  as  a  whole  is  clearly  one  of 
those  objects.  There  is  a  vast  assemblage  of  human 
beings,  of  all  nations,  tongues,  and  languages,  each 

*Southey,  Chap.  x.  t" Defense  of  Poetry." 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  423 


with  ideas  and  a  personality  and  a  cleaving  mark  of 
its  own,  yet  each  having  somewhat  that  resembles 
something  of  all,  much  that  resembles  a  part  of 
many ;  a  motley  regiment,  of  various  forms,  of  a  mill- 
ion impulses,  passions,  thoughts,  fancies,  motives, 
actions;  a  "many-headed  monster  thing;"*  a  Bashi- 
Bazouk  array ;  a  clown  to  be  laughed  at,  a  hydra  to 
be  spoken  evil  of:  yet,  in  fine,  our  all,  —  the  very 
people  of  the  whole  earth.  There  is  nothing  in  na- 
ture more  attractive  to  the  fancy  than  this  great 
spectacle  and  congregation.  Since  Herodotus  went 
to  and  fro  to  the  best  of  his  ability  over  all  the 
earth,  the  spectacle  of  civilization  has  ever  drawn  to 
itself  the  quick  eyes  and  quick  tongues  of  seeing  and 
roving  men.  Not  only,  says  Goethe,  is  man  ever  in- 
teresting to  man,  but  properly  there  is  nothing  else 
interesting,  f  There  is  a  distinct  subject  for  poetry  — 
at  least  according  to  Shelley's  definition  —  in  select- 
ing and  working  out,  in  idealizing,  in  combining,  in 
purifying,  in  intensifying  the  great  features  and  pe- 
culiarities which  make  society  as  a  whole  interesting, 
remarkable,  fancy-taking.  No  doubt  it  is  not  the 
object  of  poetry  to  versify  the  works  of  the  eminent 
narrators,  "to  prose,"  according  to  a  disrespectful  de- 
scription, "o'er  books  of  traveled  seamen,"  to  chill 
you  with  didactic  icebergs,  to  heat  you  with  torrid 
sonnets.  The  difficulty  of  reading  such  local  narra- 
tives is  now  great ;  so  great  that  a  gentleman  in  the 
reviewing  department  once  wished  "  one  man  would 
go  everywhere  and  say  everything,"  in  order  that 
the  limit  of  his  labor  at  least  might  be  settled  and 
defined ;  and  it  would  certainly  be  much  worse  if 
palrn-trees  were  of  course  to  be  in  rhyme,  and  the  din- 
ner of  the  migrator  only  recountable  in  blank  verse. 
We  do  not  wish  this  :  we  only  maintain  that  there 

*  "  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  Canto  vi. 

tNot  at  all.  He  only  says  ("Elective  Affinities,"  Chap,  viii.)  that  while 
other  things  may  be  interextiny,  mankind  is  the  proper  study  (</.  Pope,  "The 
proper  study  of  mankind  is  man"). — ED. 


424  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

are  certain  principles,  causes,  passions,  affections,  act- 
ing on  and  influencing  communities  at  large,  perme- 
ating their  life,  ruling  their  principles,  directing  their 
history,  working  as  a  subtle  and  wandering  princi- 
ple over  all  their  existence ;  these  have  a  somewhat 
abstract  character  as  compared  with  the  soft  ide- 
als and  passionate  incarnations  of  purely  individual 
character,  and  seem  dull  beside  the  stirring  lays  of 
eventful  times  in  which  the  earlier  and  bolder  poets 
delight.  Another  cause  co-operates :  the  tendency  of 
civilization  is  to  pare  away  the  oddness  and  license 
of  personal  character,  and  to  leave  a  monotonous 
agreeableness  as  the  sole  trait  and  comfort  of  man- 
kind. This  obviously  tends  to  increase  the  efficacy  of 
general  principles,  to  bring  to  view  the  daily  efficacy 
of  constant  causes,  to  suggest  the  hidden  agency  of 
subtle  abstractions ;  accordingly,  as  civilization  aug- 
ments and  philosophy  grows,  we  commonly  find  a 
school  of  common-sense  poets,  as  they  may  be  called, 
arise  and  develop,  who  proceed  to  depict  what  they 
see  around  them,  to  describe  its  natura  naturans, 
to  delineate  its  natura  naturata,  to  evolve  productive 
agencies,  to  teach  subtle  ramifications.  Complete,  as 
the  most  characteristic  specimen  of  this  class  of 
poets,  stands  Pope.  He  was,  some  one  we  think  has 
said,  the  sort  of  person  we  cannot  even  conceive 
existing  in  a  barbarous  age.  His  subject  was  not 
life  at  large,  but  fashionable  life.  He  described  the 
society  in  which  he  was  thrown,  the  people  among 
whom  he  lived;  his  mind  was  a  hoard  of  small 
maxims,  a  quintessence  of  petty  observations.  When 
he  described  character,  he  described  it,  not  dramati- 
cally nor  as  it  is  in  itself,  but  observantly  and  from 
without ;  calling  up  in  the  mind  not  so  much  a 
vivid  conception  of  the  man  —  of  the  real,  corporeal, 
substantial  being  —  as  an  idea  of  the  idea  which  a 
metaphysical  bj^stander  might  refine  and  excruciate 
concerning  him.  Society  in  Pope  is  scarcely  a  soci- 
ety of  people,  but  of  pretty  little  atoms,  colored  and 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  425 


painted  with  hoops  or  in  coats,  —  a  miniature  of 
metaphysics,  a  puppet-show  of  sylphs.  He  elucidates 
the  doctrine  that  the  tendency  of  civilized  poetry  is 
towards  an  analytic  sketch  of  the  existing  civiliza- 
tion. Nor  is  the  effect  diminished  by  the  pervading 
character  of  keen  judgment  and  minute  intrusive 
sagacity;  for  no  great  painter  of  English  life  can  be 
without  a  rough  sizing  of  strong  sense,  or  he  would 
fail  from  want  of  sympathy  with  his  subject.  Pope 
exemplifies  the  class  and  type  of  "common-sense" 
poets  who  substitute  an  animated  "catalogue  raisonne" 
of  working  thoughts  and  operative  principles  —  a 
sketch  of  the  then  present  society,  as  a  whole  and 
as  an  object  —  for  the  «Aea  avdptiv*  the  tale  of  which 
is  one  subject  of  early  verse,  and  the  stage  effect 
of  living,  loving,  passionate,  impetuous  men  and 
women  which  is  the  special  topic  of  another. 

What  Pope  is  to  our  fashionable  and  town  life, 
Cowper  is  to  our  domestic  and  rural  life ;  this  is  per- 
haps the  reason  why  he  is  so  national.  It  has  been 
said  no  foreigner  can  live  in  the  country:  we  doubt 
whether  any  people  who  felt  their  whole  heart  and 
[the]  entire  exclusive  breath  of  their  existence  to 
be  concentrated  in  a  great  capital,  could  or  would  ap- 
preciate such  intensely  provincial  pictures  as  are  the 
entire  scope  of  Cowpers  delineation.  A  good  many 
imaginative  persons  are  really  plagued  with  him ; 
everything  is  so  comfortable  —  the  tea-urn  hisses  so 
plainly,  the  toast  is  so  warm,  the  breakfast  so  neat, 
the  food  so  edible  —  that  one  turns  away  in  excit- 
ble  moments  a  little  angrily  from  anything  so 
quiet,  tame,  and  sober.  Have  we  not  always  hated 
this  life?  What  can  be  worse  than  regular  meals, 
clock-moving  servants,  a  time  for  everything  and 
everything  then  done,  a  place  for  everything  without 
the  Irish  alleviation,  —  "Sure  and  I'm  rejiced  to 
say,  that's  jist  and  exactly  where  it  isn't,"  —  a  com- 
mon gardener,  a  slow  parson,  a  heavy  assortment  of 

*  "Glories  of  tueu." 


426  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

near  relations,  a  placid  house  flowing  with  milk 
and  sugar,  —  all  that  the  fates  can  stuff  together  of 
substantial  comfort  and  fed  and  fatted  monotony? 
Aspiring  and  excitable  youth  stoutly  maintains  it 
can  endure  anything  much  better  than  the  "gross 
fog  Boeotian," — the  torpid,  indoor,  tea-tabular  felicity. 
Still,  a  great  deal  of  tea  is  really  consumed  in  the 
English  nation.  A  settled  and  practical  people  are 
distinctly  in  favor  of  heavy  relaxations,  placid  prolix- 
ities, slow  comforts.  A  state  between  the  mind  and 
the  body,  —  something  intermediate,  half-way  from 
the  newspaper  to  a  nap,  —  this  is  what  we  may  call 
the  middle-life  theory  of  the  influential  English  gen- 
tleman, the  true  aspiration  of  the  ruler  of  the  world. 

"'Tis  then  the  understanding  takes  repose 
In  indolent  vacuity  of  thought, 
And  sleeps  and  is  refreshed.     Meanwhile  the  face 
Conceals  the  mood  lethargic  with  a  mask 
Of  deep  deliberation."* 

It  is  these  indoor  scenes,  this  common  world,  this 
gentle  round  of  "calm  delights,"  the  trivial  course 
of  slowly  moving  pleasures,  the  petty  detail  of  quiet 
relaxation,  that  Cowper  excels  in.  The  post-boy,  the 
winter's  evening,  the  newspaper,  the  knitting-needles, 
the  stockings,  the  wagon,  —  these  are  his  subjects. 
His  sure  popularity  arises  from  his  having  held  up  to 
the  English  people  exact  delineations  of  what  they 
really  prefer.  Perhaps  one  person  in  four  hundred 
understands  Wordsworth  ;  about  one  in  eight  thousand 
may  appreciate  Shelley ;  but  there  is  no  expressing 
the  small  fraction  who  do  not  love  dullness,  who  do 
not  enter  into 

"home-born  happiness, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  intimate  delights, 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturbed  retirement  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know."t 


*"  The  Task."  tlbid. 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  427 


His  objection  to  the  more  exciting  and  fashionable 
pleasures  was  perhaps,  in  an  extreme  analysis,  that 
they  put  him  out ;  they  were  too  great  a  task  for 
his  energies,  —  asked  too  much  for  his  spirits.  His 
comments  on  them  rather  remind  us  of  Mr.  Rush- 
worth's —  Miss  Austen's  heavy  hero  —  remark  on  the 
theater:  "I  think  we  went  on  much  better  by  our- 
selves before  this  was  thought  of,  doing  —  doing  — 
doing  —  nothing. "  * 

The  subject  of  these  pictures,  in  point  of  interest, 
may  be  what  we  choose  to  think  it;  but  there  is  no 
denying  great  merit  to  the  execution.  The  sketches 
have  the  highest  merit,  —  suitableness  of  style.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  describe  a  post-boy  as  sonneteers 
their  mistress :  to  cover  his  plain  face  with  fine  sim- 
iles, to  put  forward  the  "brow  of  Egypt,"  to  stick 
metaphors  upon  him  as  the  Americans  upon  General 
Washington.  The  only  merit  such  topics  have  room 
for  is  an  easy  and  dexterous  plainness,  a  sober  suit 
of  well-fitting  expressions,  a  free,  working,  f  flowing, 
picturesque  garb  of  words,  adapted  to  the  solid  con- 
duct of  a  sound  and  serious  world;  and  this  merit 
Cowper's  style  has.  On  the  other  hand,  it  entirely 
wants  the  higher  and  rarer  excellences  of  poetical 
expression.  There  is  none  of  the  choice  art  which 
has  studiously  selected  the  words  of  one  class  of  great 
poets,  or  the  rare,  untaught,  unteachable  felicity 
which  has  vivified  those  of  others.  No  one,  in  reading 
Cowper,  stops  as  if  to  draw  his  breath  more  deeply 
over  words  which  do  not  so  much  express  or  clothe 
poetical  ideas,  as  seem  to  intertwine,  coalesce,  and 
be  blended  with  the  very  essence  of  poetry  itself. 

Of  course  a  poet  could  not  deal  in  any  measure 
with  such  subjects  as  Cowper  dealt  with,  and  not 
become  inevitably,  to  a  certain  extent,  satirical.  The 


*"  Mansfield  Park,"  Chap,  xix.,  third  paragraph  from  end:  —  "I  think 
we  are  a  great  deal  better  employed,  sitting  comfortably  here  among  our- 
selves, arid  doing  nothing." 

tRead  rather  "  free- working." 


428       THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

ludicrous  is  in  some  sort  the  imagination  of  common 
life.  The  "dreary  intercourse"  of  which  Wordsworth 
makes  mention*  would  be  dreary  unless  some  people 
possessed  more  than  he  did  the  faculty  of  making 
fun.  A  universe  in  which  Dignity  No.  1  conversed 
decorously  with  Dignity  No.  2  on  topics  befitting 
their  state  would  be  perhaps  a  levee  of  great  intel- 
lects and  a  tea-table  of  enormous  thoughts ;  but  it 
would  want  the  best  charm  of  this  earth,  — the  med- 
ley of  great  things  and  little,  of  things  mundane 
and  things  celestial,  things  low  and  things  awful,  of 
things  eternal  and  things  of  half  a  minute.  It  is  in 
this  contrast  that  humor  and  satire  have  their  place, 
pointing  out  the  intense,  unspeakable  incongruity  of 
the  groups  and  juxtapositions  of  our  world.  To  all 
of  these  which  fell  under  his  own  eye,  Cowper  was 
alive.  A  gentle  sense  of  propriety  and  consistency 
in  daily  things  was  evidently  characteristic  of  him : 
and  if  he  fail  of  the  highest  success  in  this  species 
of  art,  it  is  not  from  an  imperfect  treatment  of  the 
scenes  and  conceptions  which  he  touched,  but  from 
the  fact  that  the  follies  with  which  he  deals  are  not 
the  greatest  follies;  that  there  are  deeper  absurdities 
in  human  life  than  "John  Gilpin"  touches  upon; 
that  the  superficial  occurrences  of  ludicrous  life  do 
not  exhaust,  or  even  deeply  test,  the  mirthful  re- 
sources of  our  minds  and  fortunes. 

As  a  scold,  we  think  Cowper  failed.  He  had  a 
great  idea  of  the  use  of  railing,  and  there  are  many 
pages  of  laudable  invective  against  various  vices 
which  we  feel  no  call  whatever  to  defend.  But  a 
great  vituperator  had  need  to  be  a  great  hater;  and 
of  any  real  rage,  any  such  gall  and  bitterness  as 
great  and  irritable  satirists  have  in  other  ages  let 
loose  upon  men,  —  of  any  thorough,  brooding,  burn- 
ing, abiding  detestation,  —  he  was  as  incapable  as 
a  tame  hare.  His  vituperation  reads  like  the  mild 
man's  whose  wife  ate  up  his  dinner:  "Really,  sir, 

*"Tintern  Abbey." 


WILLIAM  COAVPER.  429 


I  feel  quite  angry!"  Nor  has  his  language  any  of 
the  sharp  intrusive  acumen  which  divides  in  sunder 
both  soul  and  spirit,  and  makes  fierce  and  unforget- 
able  reviling. 

Some  people  may  be  surprised,  notwithstanding 
our  lengthy  explanation,  at  hearing  Cowper  treated 
as  of  the  school  of  Pope.  It  has  been  customary,  at 
least  with  some  critics,*  to  speak  of  him  as  one  of 
those  who  recoiled  from  the  artificiality  of  that  great 
writer,  and  at  least  commenced  a  return  to  a  simple 
delineation  of  outward  nature ;  and  of  course  there 
is  considerable  truth  in  this  idea.  The  poetry  (if  such 
it  is)  of  Pope  would  be  just  as  true  if  all  the  trees 
were  yellow  and  all  the  grass  flesh-color :  he  did  not 
care  for  "snowy  scalps"  or  "rolling  streams"  or  "icy 
halls"  or  "precipices'  gloom";  nor,  for  that  matter, 
did  Cowper  either.  He,  as  Hazlitt  most  justly  said, 
was  as  much  afraid  of  a  shower  of  rain  as  any  man 
that  ever  lived,  f  At  the  same  time,  the  fashionable 
life  described  by  Pope  has  no  reference  whatever  to 
the  beauties  of  the  material  universe,  never  regards 
them,  could  go  on  just  as  well  in  the  soft,  sloppy, 
gelatinous  existence  which  Dr.  Whewell  (who  knows) 
says  is  alone  possible  in  Jupiter  and  Saturn ;  but 
the  rural  life  of  Cowper's  poetry  has  a  constant 
and  necessary  reference  to  the  country,  is  identified 
with  its  features,  cannot  be  separated  from  it  even 
in  fancy.  Green  fields  and  a  slow  river  seem  all 
the  material  of  beauty  Cowper  had  given  him;  but 
what  was  more  to  the  purpose,  his  attention  was 
well  concentrated  upon  them.  As  he  himself  said, 
he  did  not  go  more  than  thirteen  miles  from  home 
for  twenty  years,  and  very  seldom  as  far.  He  was 
therefore  well  able  to  find  out  all  that  was  charming 
in  Olney  and  its  neighborhood;  and  as  it  presented 
nothing  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  fresh 
rural  parts  of  England,  what  he  has  left  us  is  really 


*  Macaulay,  for  example,  —  Essay  on  Byron  —  En. 

t  Lectures  on  the  English  Poets,  —  Thomson  and  Cowper. 


430  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

a  delicate  description  and  appreciative  delineation  of 
the  simple  essential  English  country. 

However,  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  descrip- 
tion of  nature  in  Cowper  differs  altogether  from  the 
peculiar  delineation  of  the  same  subject  which  has 
been  so  influential  in  more  recent  times,  and  which 
bears,  after  its  greatest  master,  the  name  "  Words- 
worthian."  To  Cowper  nature  is  simply  a  back- 
ground,—  a  beautiful  background,  no  doubt,  but  still 
essentially  a  locus  in  quo,  a  space  in  which  the  work 
and  mirth  of  life  pass  and  are  performed.  A  more 
professedly  formal  delineation  does  not  occur  than 
the  following:  — 

"O  Winter!  ruler  of  the  inverted  year, 
Thy  scattered  hair  with  sleet-like  ashes  filled, 
Thy  breath  congealed  upon  thy  lips,  thy  cheeks 
Fringed  with  a  beard  made  white  with  other  snows 
Than  those  of  age,  thy  forehead  wrapped  in  clouds, 
A  leafless  branch  thy  sceptre,  and  thy  throne 
A  sliding  car,  indebted  to  no  wheels, 
But  urged  by  storms  along  its  slippery  way, — 
I  love  thee,  all  unlovely  as  thou  seem'st, 
And  dreaded  as  thou  art.     Thou  hold'st  the  sun 
A  prisoner  in  the  yet  undawning  east, 
Shortening  his  journey  between  morn  and  noon, 
And  hurrying  him,  impatient  of  his  stay, 
Down  to  the  rosy  west;  but  kindly  still 
Compensating  his  loss  with  added  hours 
Of  social  converse  and  instructive  ease, 
And  gathering,  at  short  notice,  in  one  group 
The  family  dispersed,  and  fixing  thought, 
Not  less  dispersed  by  daylight  and  its  cares. 
I  crown  thee  king  of  intimate  delights, 
Fireside  enjoyments,  home-born  happiness, 
And  all  the  comforts  that  the  lowly  roof 
Of  undisturbed  retirement  and  the  hours 
Of  long  uninterrupted  evening  know. 
No  rattling  wheels  stop  short  before  these  gates."* 

After  a  very  few   lines   he   returns   within   doors  to 
the  occupation  of  man  and  woman,  to  human  tasks 

*"The  Task." 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  431 


and  human  pastimes.  To  Wordsworth,  on  the  con- 
trary, nature  is  a  religion.  So  far  from  being  un- 
willing to  treat  her  as  a  special  object  of  study,  he 
hardly  thought  any  other  equal  or  comparable.  He 
was  so  far  from  holding  the  doctrine  that  the  earth 
was  made  for  men  to  live  in,  that  it  would  rather 
seem  as  if  he  thought  men  were  created  to  see  the 
earth.  The  whole  aspect  of  nature  was  to  him 
a  special  revelation  of  an  immanent  and  abiding 
power,  a  breath  of  the  pervading  art,  a  smile  of 
the  Eternal  Mind,  according  to  the  lines  which  every 
one  knows  :  — 

"A  sense  sublime 

Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man : 
A  motion  and  a  spirit  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things,  "t 

Of  this  haunting,  supernatural,  mystical  view  of 
nature  Cowper  never  heard.  Like  the  strong  old 
lady  who  said  "she  was  born  before  nerves  were 
invented,"  he  may  be  said  to  have  lived  before  the 
awakening  of  the  detective  sensibility  which  reveals 
this  deep  and  obscure  doctrine. 

In  another  point  of  view,  also,  Cowper  is  curi- 
ously contrasted  with  Wordsworth  as  a  delineator 
of  nature.  The  delineation  of  Cowper  is  a  simple 
delineation :  he  makes  a  sketch  of  the  object  before 
him,  and  there  he  leaves  it.  Wordsworth,  on  the  con- 
trary, is  not  satisfied  unless  he  describe  not  only  the 
bare  outward  object  which  others  see,  but  likewise 
the  reflected  high -wrought  feelings  which  that  object 
excites  in  a  brooding,  self-conscious  mind.  His  sub- 
ject was  not  so  much  nature,  as  nature  reflected  by 
Wordsworth.  Years  of  deep  musing  and  long  intro- 
spection had  made  him  familiar  with  every  shade 

t  Wordsworth,  "Tiutern  Abbey." 


432  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

and  shadow  in  the  many-colored  impression  which  the 
universe  makes  on  meditative  genius  and  observant 
sensibility.  Now,  these  feelings  Cowper  did  not.  de- 
scribe, because  to  all  appearance  he  did  not  perceive 
them.  He  had  a  great  pleasure  in  watching  the  com- 
mon changes  and  common  aspects  of  outward  things, 
but  he  was  not  invincibly  prone  to  brood  and  pore 
over  their  reflex  effects  upon  his  own  mind :  — 

"A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him, 
And  it  was  nothing  more."* 

According  to  the  account  which  Cowper  at  first  gave 
of  his  literary  occupations,  his  entire  design  was  to 
communicate  the  religious  views  to  which  he  was 
then  a  convert :  he  fancied  that  the  vehicle  of  verse 
might  bring  many  to  listen  to  truths  which  they 
would  be  disinclined  to  have  stated  to  them  in  simple 
prose.  And  however  tedious  the  recurrence  of  these 
theological  tenets  may  be  to  the  common  reader,  it 
is  certain  that  a  considerable  portion  of  Cowper's 
peculiar  popularity  may  be  traced  to  their  expression ; 
he  is  the  one  poet  of  a  class  which  has  no  poets. 
In  that  once  large  and  still  considerable  portion  of 
the  English  world  which  regards  the  exercise  of  the 
fancy  and  the  imagination  as  dangerous,  —  snares,  as 
they  speak,  distracting  the  soul  from  an  intense  con- 
sideration of  abstract  doctrine,  —  Cowper's  strenuous 
inculcation  of  those  doctrines  has  obtained  for  him  a 
certain  toleration.  Of  course  all  verse  is  perilous : 
the  use  of  single  words  is  harmless,  but  the  employ- 
ment of  two  in  such  a  manner  as  to  form  a  rhyme, 
the  regularities  of  interval  and  studied  recurrence 
of  the  same  sound,  evince  an  attention  to  time  and 
a  partiality  to  things  of  sense.  Most  poets  must  be 
prohibited;  the  exercise  of  the  fancy  requires  watch- 
ing :  but  Cowper  is  a  ticket-of -leave  man ;  he  has 
the  chaplain's  certificate;  he  has  expressed  himself 

•Wordsworth,  "Peter  Bell." 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  433 


"with  the  utmost  propriety";  the  other  imaginative 
criminals  must  be  left  to  the  fates,  but  he  may  be 
admitted  to  the  sacred  drawing-room,  though  with 
constant  care  and  scrupulous  surveillance.  Perhaps, 
however,  taken  in  connection  with  his  diseased  and 
peculiar  melancholy,  these  tenets  really  add  to  the 
artistic  effect  of  Cowper's  writings.  The  free  dis- 
cussion of  daily  matters,  the  delicate  delineation 
of  domestic  detail,  the  passing  narrative  of  fugitive 
occurrences,  would  seem  light  and  transitory  if  it 
were  not  broken  by  the  interruption  of  a  terrible 
earnestness,  and  relieved  by  the  dark  background 
of  a  deep  and  foreboding  sadness.  It  is  scarcely 
artistic  to  describe  "the  painted  veil  which  those 
who  live  call  life,"*  and  leave  wholly  out  of  view 
and  undescribed  "the  chasm  sightless  and  drear  "f 
which  lies  always  beneath  and  around  it. 

It  is  of  "The  Task"  more  than  of  Cowper's  earlier 
volume  of  poems  that  a  critic  of  his  poetry  must 
more  peculiarly  be  understood  to  speak.  All  the 
best  qualities  of  his  genius  are  there  concentrated, 
and  the  alloy  is  less  than  elsewhere.  He  was  fond 
of  citing  the  saying  of  Dryden  that  the  rhyme  had 
often  helped  him  to  a  thought,  —  a  great  but  very 
perilous  truth.  The  difficulty  is,  that  the  rhyme  so 
frequently  helps  to  the  wrong  thought ;  that  the 
stress  of  the  mind  is  recalled  from  the  main  thread 
of  the  poem,  from  the  narrative  or  sentiment  or  de- 
lineation, to  some  wayside  remark  or  fancy  which 
the  casual  resemblance  of  final  sound  suggests.  This 
is  fatal,  unless  either  a  poet's  imagination  be  so  hot 
and  determined  as  to  bear  down  upon  its  objects 
and  to  be  unwilling  to  hear  the  voice  of  any  charmer 
who  might  distract  it ;  or  else  the  nature  of  the  poem 
itself  should  be  of  so  desultory  a  character  that  it 
does  not  much  matter  about  the  sequence  of  the 
thought,  at  least  within  great  and  ample  limits.  — 
as  in  some  of  Swift's  casual  rhymos,  where  the  sound 


*  Shelley,  Sonnet,  1813.  tlbid. 

VOL.    I.  —  28 


434  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

is  in  fact  the  connecting  link  of  unity.  Now,  Cowper 
is  not  often  in  either  of  these  positions :  he  always 
has  a  thread  of  argument  on  which  he  is  hanging 
his  illustrations,  and  yet  he  has  not  the  exclusive 
interest  or  the  undeviating  energetic  downrightness 
of  mind  which  would  insure  his  going  through  it 
without  idling  or  turning  aside;  consequently  the 
thoughts  which  the  rhyme  suggests  are  constantly 
breaking  in  upon  the  main  matter,  destroying  the 
emphatic  unity  which  is  essential  to  rhythmical  delin- 
eation. His  blank  verse  of  course  is  exempt  from 
this  defect;  and  there  is  moreover  something  in  the 
nature  of  the  metre  which  fits  it  for  the  expression 
of  studious  and  quiet  reflection.  "  The  Task,"  too, 
was  composed  at  the  healthiest  period  of  Cowper's 
later  life,  in  the  full  vigor  of  his  faculties,  and 
with  the  spur  [that]  the  semi-recognition  of  his  first 
volume  had  made  it  a  common  subject  of  literary 
discussion  whether  he  was  a  poet  or  not.  Many 
men  could  endure  —  as  indeed  all  but  about  ten  do 
actually  in  every  generation  endure  —  to  be  without 
this  distinction;  but  few  could  have  an  idea  that  it 
was  a  frequent  point  of  argument  whether  they  were 
duly  entitled  to  possess  it  or  not,  without  at  least  a 
strong  desire  to  settle  the  question  by  some  work 
of  decisive  excellence.  This  "The  Task"  achieved 
for  Cowper.  Since  its  publication  his  name  has  been 
a  household  word,  a  particularly  household  word,  in 
English  literature.  The  story  of  its  composition  is 
connected  with  one  of  the  most  curious  incidents  in 
Cowper's  later  life,  and  has  given  occasion  to  a  good 
deal  of  writing. 

In  the  summer  of  1781  it  happened  that  two  ladies 
called  at  a  shop  exactly  opposite  the  house  at  Olney 
where  Cowper  and  Mrs.  Unwin  resided.  One  of  these 
was  a  familiar  and  perhaps  tame  object,  —  a  Mrs. 
Jones,  the  wife  of  a  neighboring  parson ;  the  other, 
however,  was  so  striking  that  Cowper,  one  of  the 
shyest  and  least  demonstrative  of  men,  immediately 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  435 


asked  Mrs.  Unwin  to  invite  her  to  tea.  This  was  a 
great  event,  as  it  would  appear  that  few  or  no  social 
interruptions,  casual  or  contemplated,  then  varied  what 
Cowper  called  the  "duality  of  his  existence."  This 
favored  individual  was  Lady  Austen,  a  person  of  what 
Mr.  Hay  ley  terms  "colloquial  talents";  in  truth,  an 
energetic,  vivacious,  amusing,  and  rather  handsome 
lady  of  the  world.  She  had  been  much  in  France, 
and  is  said  to  have  caught  the  facility  of  manner 
and  love  of  easy  society  which  is  the  unchanging 
characteristic  of  that  land  of  change.  She  was  a 
fascinating  person  in  the  great  world,  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine  she  must  have  been  an  excite- 
ment indeed  at  Olney.  She  was,  however,  most 
gracious;  fell  in  love,  as  Cowper  says,  not  only  with 
him  but  with  Mrs.  Unwin;  was  called  "Sister  Ann," 
laughed  and  made  laugh,  was  every  way  so  great 
an  acquisition  that  his  seeing  her  appeared  to  him  to 
show  "strong  marks  of  providential  interposition." 
He  thought  her  superior  to  the  curate's  wife,  who 
was  a  "valuable  person,"  but  had  a  family,  etc.,  etc. 
The  new  acquaintance  had  much  to  contribute  to  the 
Olney  conversation.  She  had  seen  much  of  the  world, 
and  probably  seen  it  well,  and  had  at  least  a  good 
deal  to  narrate  concerning  it.  Among  other  interest- 
ing matters,  she  one  day  recounted  to  Cowper  the 
story  of  John  Gilpin  as  one  which  she  had  heard  in 
childhood ;  and  in  a  short  time  the  poet  sent  her  the 
ballad,  which  every  one  has  liked  ever  since.  It  was 
written,  he  says  (no  doubt  truly),  in  order  to  relieve 
a  fit  of  terrible  and  uncommon  despondency;  but 
altogether,  for  a  few  months  after  the  introduction 
of  this  new  companion,  he  was  more  happy  and 
animated  than  at  any  other  time  after  his  first  ill- 
ness. Clouds,  nevertheless,  began  to  show  themselves 
soon.  The  circumstances  are  of  the  minute  and 
female  kind  which  it  would  require  a  good  deal  of 
writing  ,to  describe,  even  if  we  knew  them  perfectly. 
The  'original  cause  of  misconstruction  was  a  rather 


436  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

romantic  letter  of  Lady  Austen,  drawing  a  sublime 
picture  of  what  she  expected  from  Cowper's  friend- 
ship. Mr.  Scott,  the  clergyman  at  Olney,  who  had 
taken  the  place  of  Mr.  Newton,  and  who  is  described 
as  a  dry  and  sensible  man,  gave  a  short  account  of 
what  he  thought  was  the  real  embroilment :  "  Who," 
said  he,  "can  be  surprised  that  two  women  should 
be  continually  in  the  society  of  one  man  and  quarrel 
sooner  or  later  with  each  other  ? "  Cowper's  own  de- 
scription shows  how  likely  this  was.* 

"From  a  scene  of  the  most  uninterrupted  retirement,"  he  says 
to  Mr.  Unwin,  "we  have  passed  at  once  into  a  state  of  constant 
engagement.  Not  that  our  society  is  much  multiplied :  the  addition 
of  an  individual  has  made  all  this  difference.  Lady  Austen  and  we 
pass  our  days  alternately  at  each  other's  chdteau.  In  the  morning 
I  walk  with  one  or  other  of  the  ladies,  and  in  the  afternoon  wind 
thread.  Thus  did  Hercules,  and  thus  probably  did  Samson,  and 
thus  do  I ;  and  were  both  those  heroes  living,  I  should  not  fear  to 
challenge  them  to  a  trial  of  skill  in  that  business,  or  doubt  to 
beat  them  both.  As  to  killing  lions  and  other  amusements  of  that 
kind,  with  which  they  were  so  delighted,  I  should  be  their  humble 
servant  and  beg  to  be  excused,  "t 

Things  were  in  this  state  when  she  suggested  to 
him  the  composition  of  a  new  poem  of  some  length 
in  blank  verse,  and  on  being  asked  to  suggest  a  sub- 
ject, said,  "Well,  write  upon  that  sofa;"  whence  is 
the  title  of  the  first  book  of  "The  Task."  According 
to  Cowper's  own  account,  it  was  this  poem  which 
was  the  cause  of  the  ensuing  dissension. 

"On  her  first  settlement  in  our  neighborhood,  I  made  it  my  own 
particular  business  (for  at  that  time  I  was  not  employed  in  writ- 
ing, having  published  my  first  volume  and  not  begun  my  second) 
to  pay  my  devoirs  to  her  Ladyship  every  morning  at  eleven.  Cus- 
toms very  soon  become  laws.  I  began  'The  Task1;  for  she  was  the 
lady  who  gave  me  'The  Sofa'  for  a  subject.  Being  once  engaged 
in  the  work,  I  began  to  feel  the  inconvenience  of  my  morning 
attendance.  We  had  seldom  breakfasted  ourselves  till  ten,  and  the 
intervening  hour  was  all  the  time  that  I  could  find  in  the  whole 


*Southey,  Chap.  x.  tlbid. 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  437 


day  for  writing ;  and  occasionally  it  would  happen  that  the  half  of 
that  hour  was  all  that  I  could  secure  for  the  purpose.  But  there 
was  no  remedy.  Long  usage  had  made  that  which  at  first  was 
optional,  a  point  of  good  manners,  and  consequently  of  necessity ; 
and  I  was  forced  to  neglect  'The  Task,'  to  attend  upon  the  Muse 
who  had  inspired  the  subject.  But  she  had  ill  health,  and  before 
I  had  quite  finished  the  work  was  obliged  to  repair  to  Bristol."* 

And  it  is  possible  that  this  is  the  true  account  of 
the  matter;  yet  we  fancy  there  is  a  kind  of  awk- 
wardness and  constraint  in  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  spoken  of.  Of  course  the  plain  and  literal  portion 
of  mankind  have  set  it  down  at  once  that  Cowper 
was  in  love  with  Lady  Austen,  just  as  they  married 
him  over  and  over  again  to  Mrs.  Unwin  ;  but  of  a 
strong  passionate  love,  as  we  have  before  explained, 
we  do  not  think  Cowper  capable,  and  there  are  cer- 
tainly no  signs  of  it  in  this  case.  There  is,  however, 
one  odd  circumstance :  years  after,  when  no  longer 
capable  of  original  composition,  he  was  fond  of 
hearing  all  his  poems  read  to  him  except  "John 
Gilpin "  ;  there  were  recollections,  he  said,  connected 
with  those  verses  which  were  too  painful.  Did  he 
mean  the  worm  that  dieth  not,  —  the  reminiscence 
of  the  animated  narratress  of  that  not  intrinsically 
melancholy  legend  ? 

The  literary  success  of  Cowper  opened  to  him  a 
far  larger  circle  of  acquaintance,  and  connected  him 
in  close  bonds  with  many  of  his  relations,  who  had 
looked  with  an  unfavorable  eye  at  the  peculiar  tenets 
which  he  had  adopted,  and  the  peculiar  and  recluse 
life  which  he  had  been  advised  to  lead.  It  is  to  these 
friends  and  acquaintance  that  we  owe  that  copious 
correspondence  on  which  so  much  of  Cowper' s  fame 
at  present  rests.  The  complete  letter-writer  is  now 
an  unknown  animal.  In  the  last  century,  when  com- 
munications were  difficult  and  epistles  rare,  there 
were  a  great  many  valuable  people  who  devoted  a 
good  deal  of  time  to  writing  elaborate  letters.  You 


*  Southcy,  Chap,  x 


438        THE  TRAVELERS  IXS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

wrote  letters  to  a  man  whom  you  knew  nineteen 
years  and  a  half  ago,  and  told  him  what  you  had  for 
dinner,  and  what  your  second  cousin  said,  and  how 
the  crops  got  on.  Every  detail  of  life  was  described 
and  dwelt  on,  and  improved.  The  art  of  writing,  at 
least  of  writing  easily,  was  comparatively  rare ;  which 
kept  the  number  of  such  compositions  within  narrow 
limits.  Sir  Walter  Scott  says  he  knew  a  man  who 
remembered  that  the  London  post-bag  once  came  to 
Edinburgh  with  only  one  letter  in  it.  One  can  fancy 
the  solemn  conscientious  elaborateness  with  which  a 
person  would  write,  with  the  notion  that  his  letter 
would  have  a  whole  coach  and  a  whole  bag  to  itself, 
and  travel  two  hundred  miles  alone,  the  exclusive 
object  of  a  red  guard's  care.  The  only  thing  like 
it  now  —  the  deferential  minuteness  with  which  one 
public  office  writes  to  another,  conscious  that  the 
letter  will  travel  on  her  Majesty's  service  three  doors 
down  the  passage  —  sinks  by  comparison  into  cursory 
brevity :  no  administrative  reform  will  be  able  to 
bring  even  the  official  mind  of  these  days  into  the 
grave  inch-an-hour  conscientiousness  with  which  a 
confidential  correspondent  of  a  century  ago  related 
the  growth  of  apples,  the  manufacture  of  jams,  the 
appearance  of  flirtations,  and  other  such  things.  All 
the  ordinary  incidents  of  an  easy  life  were  made 
the  most  of;  a  party  was  epistolary  capital,  a  race 
a  mine  of  wealth.  So  deeply  sentimental  was  this 
intercourse,  that  it  was  much  argued  whether  the  af- 
fections were  created  for  the  sake  of  the  ink,  or  ink 
for  the  sake  of  the  affections.  Thus  it  continued 
for  many  years ;  and  the  fruits  thereof  are  written 
in  the  volumes  of  family  papers  which  daily  appear, 
are  praised  as  "materials  for  the  historian,"  and 
consigned,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  posterity  or  obliv- 
ion. All  this  has  now  passed  away :  Sir  Rowland 
Hill  is  entitled  to  the  credit  not  only  of  introducing 
stamps,  but  also  of  destroying  letters.  The  amount 
of  annotations  which  will  be  required  to  make  the 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  439 


notes  of  this  day  intelligible  to  posterity  is  a  wonder- 
ful idea,  and  no  quantity  of  comment  will  make  them 
readable :  you  might  as  well  publish  a  collection  of 
telegraphs.  The  careful  detail,  the  studious  minute- 
ness, the  circumstantial  statement  of  a  former  time  is 
exchanged  for  a  curt  brevity  or  only  half-intelligible 
narration.  In  old  times,  letters  were  written  for 
people  who  knew  nothing  and  required  to  be  told 
everything;  now  they  are  written  for  people  who 
know  everything  except  the  one  thing  which  the  let- 
ter is  designed  to  explain  to  them.  It  is  impossible 
in  some  respects  not  to  regret  the  old  practice :  it  is 
well  that  each  age  should  write  for  itself  a  faithful 
account  of  its  habitual  existence.  We  do  this  to  a 
certain  extent  in  novels,  but  novels  are  difficult 
materials  for  a  historian :  they  raise  a  cause  and  a 
controversy  as  to  how  far  they  are  really  faithful  de- 
lineations ;  Lord  Macaulay  is  even  now  under  criticism 
for  his  use  of  the  plays  of  the  seventeenth  century. 
Letters  are  generally  true  on  certain  points :  the  least 
veracious  man  will  tell  truly  the  color  of  his  coat, 
the  hour  of  his  dinner,  the  materials  of  his  shoes ; 
the  unconscious  delineation  of  a  recurring  and  famil- 
iar life  is  beyond  the  reach  of  a  fraudulent  fancy. 
Horace  Walpole  was  not  a  very  scrupulous  narrator, 
yet  it  was  too  much  trouble  even  for  him  to  tell 
lies  on  many  things  ;  his  set  stories  and  conspicuous 
scandals  are  no  doubt  often  unfounded,  but  there  is 
a  gentle  undercurrent  of  daily  unremarkable  life  and 
manners  which  he  evidently  assumed  as  a  datum 
for  his  historical  imagination.  Whence  posterity  will 
derive  this  for  the  times  of  Queen  Victoria  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  fancy.  Even  memoirs  are  no  resource :  they 
generally  leave  out  the  common  life,  and  try  at  least 
to  bring  out  the  uncommon  events. 

It  is  evident  that  this  species  of  composition 
exactly  harmonized  with  the  temperament  and  gen- 
ius of  Cowper :  detail  was  his  forte  and  quietness 
his  element.  Accordingly,  his  delicate  humor  plays 


440  THE   TRAVELERS   IXS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

over  perhaps  a  million  letters,  mostly  descriptive  of 
events  which  no  one  else  would  have  thought  worth 
narrating,  and  yet  which  when  narrated  show  to 
us,  and  will  show  to  persons  to  whom  it  will  be 
yet  more  strange,  the  familiar,  placid,  easy,  ruminat- 
ing, provincial  existence  of  our  great-grandfathers. 
Slow,  Olney  might  be ;  indescribable  it  certainly  was 
not,  —  we  seem  to  have  lived  there  ourselves. 

The  most  copious  subject  of  Cowper's  correspond- 
ence is  his  translation  of  Homer.  This  was  pub- 
lished by  subscription ;  and  it  is  pleasant  to  observe 
the  healthy  facility  with  which  one  of  the  shyest 
men  in  the  world  set  himself  to  extract  guineas  from 
every  one  he  had  ever  heard  of.  In  several  cases 
he  was  very  successful.  The  University  of  Oxford,  he 
tells  us,  declined,  as  of  course  it  would,  to  recognize 
the  principle  of  subscribing  towards  literary  publi- 
cations ;  but  other  public  bodies  and  many  private 
persons  were  more  generous.  It  is  to  be  wished  that 
their  aid  had  contributed  to  the  production  of  a 
more  pleasing  work.  The  fact  is,  Cowper  was  not 
like  Agamemnon.  The  most  conspicuous  feature  in 
the  Greek  heroes  is  a  certain  brisk,  decisive  activity, 
which  always  strikes  and  always  likes  to  strike. 
This  quality  is  faithfully  represented  in  the  poet 
himself :  Homer  is  the  briskest  of  men.  The  Ger- 
mans have  denied  that  there  was  any  such  person; 
but  they  have  never  questioned  his  extreme  activity. 
"From  what  you  tell  me,  sir,"  said  an  American,  "I 
should  like  to  have  read  Homer :  I  should  say  he 
was  a  go-ahead  party."  Now,  this  is  exactly  what 
Cowper  was  not :  his  genius  was  domestic  and  tran- 
quil and  calm.  He  had  no  sympathy,  or  little  sym- 
pathy, even  with  the  common  half-asleep  activities 
of  a  refined  society :  an  evening  party  was  too  much 
for  him,  a  day's  hunt  a  preposterous  excitement. 
It  is  absurd  to  expect  a  man  like  this  to  sympa- 
thize with  the  stern  stimulants  of  a  barbaric  age, — 
with  a  race  who  fought  because  they  liked  it,  and  a 


WILLIAM   COW  PER.  441 

poet  who  sang  of  fighting  because  he  thought  their 
taste  judicious.  As  if  to  make  matters  worse,  Cow- 
per  selected  a  metre  in  which  it  would  be  scarcely 
possible  for  any  one,  however  gifted,  to  translate 
Homer.  The  two  kinds  of  metrical  composition  most 
essentially  opposed  to  one  another  are  ballad  poetry 
and  blank  verse.  The  very  nature  of  the  former  re- 
quires a  marked  pause  and  striking  rhythm :  every 
line  should  have  a  distinct  end  and  a  clear  begin- 
ning; it  is  like  martial  music,  —  there  should  be  a 
tramp  in  the  very  versification  of  it. 

"Armor  rusting  in  his  halls 
On  the  blood  of  Clifford  calls : 
'Quell  the  Scot,'  exclaims  the  lance; 
'Bear  me  to  the  heart  of  France,1 
Is  the  longing  of  the  shield ; 
Tell  thy  name,  thou  trembling  field ; 
Field  of  death,  where'er  thou  be, 
Groan  thou  with  our  victory  !  "  * 

And  this  is  the  tone  of  Homer.  The  grandest  of 
human  tongues  marches  forward  with  its.  proudest 
steps;  the  clearest  tones  call  "Forward!"  the  most 
marked  of  metres  carries  him  on. 

"Like  a  reappearing  star, 
Like  a  glory  from  afar,"t 

he  ever  heads,  and  will  head,  "the  flock  of  war."}: 
Now.  blank  verse  is  the  exact  opposite  of  all  this. 
Dr.  Johnson  laid  down  that  it  was  verse  only  to  the 
eye,  which  was  a  bold  dictum ;  but  without  going 
this  length,  it  will  be  safe  to  say  that  of  all  consid- 
erable metres  in  our  language  it  has  the  least  dis- 
tinct conclusion,  [the]  least  decisive  repetition,  the 
least  trumpet-like  rhythm :  and  it  is  this  of  which 
Cowper  made  choice.  He  had  an  idea  that  extreme 
literalness  was  an  unequaled  advantage,  and  logically 
reasoned  that  it  was  easier  to  do  this  in  that  metre 
than  in  any  other.  He  did  not  quite  hold,  with  Mr. 


M  }  Wordsworth,  "Feast  of  Brougham  Castle." 


7IIE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 


Cobbett,  that  the  "gewgaw  fetters  of  rhyme  were 
invented  by  the  monks  to  enslave  the  people " ;  *  but 
as  a  man  who  had  due  experience  of  both,  he  was 
aware  that  it  is  easier  to  write  two  lines  of  differ- 
ent endings  than  two  lines  of  the  same  ending,  and 
supposed  that  by  taking  advantage  of  this  to  pre- 
serve the  exact  grammatical  meaning  of  his  author, 
he  was  indisputably  approximating  to  a  good  trans- 
lation. 

"Whether,"  he  writes,  "a  translation  of  Homer  may  be  best 
executed  in  blank  verse  or  in  rhyme  is  a  question  in  the  decision 
of  which  no  man  finds  difficulty  who  has  ever  duly  considered 
what  translation  ought  to  be,  or  who  is  in  any  degree  practically 
acquainted  with  those  kinds  of  versification.  ...  No  human  inge- 
nuity can  be  equal  to  the  task  of  closing  every  couplet  with  sounds 
homotonous,  expressing  at  the  same  time  the  full  sense  and  only 
the  full  sense  of  the  original." 

And  if  the  true  object  of  translation  were  to  save  the 
labor  and  dictionaries  of  construing  schoolboys,  there 
is  no  question  but  this  slavish  adherence  to  the 
original  would  be  the  most  likely  to  gain  the  appro- 
bation of  those  diminutive  but  sure  judges ;  but  if 
the  object  is  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  general  tone, 
scope,  and  artistic  effect  of  the  original,  the  mechan- 
ical copying  of  the  details  is  as  likely  to  end  in  a 
good  result  as  a  careful  cast  from  a  dead  man's  fea- 
tures to  produce  a  living  and  speaking  being.  On 
the  whole,  therefore,  the  condemnation  remains,  that 
Homer  is  not  dull  and  Cowper  is. 

With  the  translation  of  Homer  terminated  all  the 
brightest  period  of  Cowper's  life.  There  is  little  else 
to  say.  He  undertook  an  edition  of  Milton :  a  most 
difficult  task,  involving  the  greatest  and  most  accu- 
rate learning  in  theology,  in  classics,  in  Italian,  —  in 
a  word,  in  all  ante-Miltonic  literature.  By  far  the 
greater  portion  of  this  lay  quite  out  of  Cowper's 
path.  He  had  never  been  a  hard  student,  and  his 
evident  incapacity  for  the  task  troubled  and  vexed 
him :  a  man  who  had  never  been  able  to  assume  any 


*  Beginning  of  imaginary  letter  in  "Rejected  Addresses." 


WILLIAM   COWPER.  443 


real  responsibility  was  not  likely  to  feel  comfortable 
under  the  weight  of  a  task  which  very  few  men  would 
be  able  to  accomplish.  Mrs.  Unwin,  too,  fell  into  a 
state  of  helplessness  and  despondency ;  and  instead  of 
relying  on  her  for  cheerfulness  and  management,  he 
was  obliged  to  manage  for  her  and  cheer  her.  His 
mind  was  unequal  to  the  task.  Gradually  the  dark 
cloud  of  melancholy,  which  had  hung  about  him  so 
long,  grew  and  grew,  and  extended  itself  day  by 
day.  In  vain  Lord  Thurlow,  who  was  a  likely  man 
to  know,  assured  him  that  his  spiritual  despondency 
was  without  ground ;  he  smiled  sadly,  but  seemed  to 
think  that  at  any  rate  he  was  not  going  into  Chan- 
cery. In  vain  Hayley,  a  rival  poet,  but  a  good- 
natured,  blundering,  well-intentioned,  incoherent  man, 
went  to  and  fro,  getting  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  and 
other  dignitaries  to  attest,  under  their  hands,  that 
they  concurred  in  Thurlow's  opinion.  In  vain,  with 
far  wiser  kindness,  his  relatives,  especially  many  of 
his  mothers  family,  from  whom  he  had  been  long 
divided,  but  who  gradually  drew  nearer  to  him  as 
they  were  wanted,  endeavored  to  divert  his  mind 
to  healthful  labor  and  tranquil  society.  The  day 
of  these  things  had  passed  away ;  the  summer  was 
ended.  He  became  quite  unequal  to  original  com- 
position, and  his  greatest  pleasure  was  hearing  his 
own  writings  read  to  him.  After  a  long  period  of 
hopeless  despondency,  he  died  on  April  25  in  the  first 
year  of  this  century;  and  if  he  needs  an  epitaph,  let 
us  say  that  not  in  vain  was  he  Nature's  favorite. 
As  a  higher  poet  sings :  — 

"And  all  day  long  I  number  yet, 
All  seasons  through,  another  debt, 
Which  I,  wherever  thou  art  met, 

To  thee  am  owing; 
An  instinct  call  it,  a  blind  sense, 
A  happy,  genial  influence, 
Coming  one  knows  not  how  nor  whence, 

Nor  whither  going. 


444  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.    CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

"If  stately  passions  in  me  burn, 
And  one  chance  look  to  thee  should  turn, 
I  drink  out  of  a  humbler  urn 

A  lowlier  pleasure : 
The  homely  sympathy  that  heeds 
The  common  life  our  nature  breeds ; 
A  wisdom  fitted  to  the  needs 

Of  hearts  at  leisure."* 


*  Wordsworth,  "To  the  Daisy." 


APPENDIX. 


TRANSLATIONS   FROM   BERANGER. 

[The  translations  of  "Laideur  et  Beaute,"  "La  Mouehe,"  "Cinquante 
Ans,"  and  "Le  Vieux  Vagabond,"  were  made  for  this  work,  by  Walter 
Learned;  those  of  "Roger  Bontemps"  and  "Les  Souvenirs  du  Peuple"  are 
from  William  Young's  volume,  by  permission  of  D.  Appleton  ct  Co.] 

VERSES  FROM  "Lss  BOHEMIEXS"  (THE  GIPSIES). 

To  see  is  to  have.     Let's  hurry  anew  ! 

Life  on  the  wing 

Is  a  rapturous  thing. 
To  see  is  to  have.     Let's  hurry  anew ! 
For  to  see  the  world  is  to  conquer  it  too. 


So  naught  do  we  own,  from  pride  left  free, 

From  statutes  vain, 

From  heavy  chain  ; 

So  naught  do  we  own,  from  pride  left  free,  — 
Cradle  nor  house  nor  coffin  have  we. 

But  credit  our  jollity  none  the  less, 

Noble  or  priest,  or 

Servant  or  master ; 

But  credit  our  jollity  none  the  less,  — 
Liberty  always  means  happiness. 

Yes,  credit  our  jollity  none  the  less, 

Noble  or  priest,  or 

Servant  or  master ; 

Yes,  credit  our  jollity  HOIK;  the  less,  — 
Liberty  always  means  happiness. 

(44?) 


448  THE   TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

UGLINESS  AND  BEAUTY. 

(Laideur  et  Beautd.) 

I  am  quite  overcome  by  her  beauty, 

Maybe  I'm  deceived  by  a  mask. 
Make  her  plain  and  repellent  as  duty  ; 

Let  her  be  even  ugly,  I  ask. 
While  so  charming,  ah,  who  could  but  love  her? 

O  powers  of  heaven  and  hell ! 

0  spirits  below  and  above  her ! 

Make  her  plain  ;  let  me  love  her  as  well. 

Then  appeared  at  my  words  of  complaining 
Satan,  father  of  darkness  and  night. 

"Make  her  plain,"  said  he:  "this  you'll  be  gaining, 
That  your  rivals  will  flee  at  her  sight. 

1  am  fond  of  these  metamorphoses ; 
Lo,  singing  approaches  the  belle. 

Fall  pearls,  fade  bloom,  wither  roses  — 
See!  she's  plain,  and  you  love  her  as  well." 

"Me,  plain!"  she  cried.     "Sure  'tis  an  error." 

Saying  which,  to  her  glass  she  drew  near, 
First  in  doubt  and  then  all  in  terror 

To  fall,  fainting  with  sorrow  and  fear. 
"  Swear  for  me  and  me  only  to  live,  dear," 

Cried  I,  at  her  feet  as  I  fell : 
"Here's  the  one  faithful  heart  I  can  give,  dear, — 

Plainer  still,  I  would  love  you  as  well." 

Then  her  eyes  grew  so  heavy  with  weeping 

That  her  grief  touched  my  heart  for  a  while  : 
"Give  her  back  all  the  charms  you  are  keeping!" 

And  Satan  said  "Yes,"  with  a  smile. 
As  the  first  faint  blush  of  the  morning 

Her  beauty  returned  like  a  spell, 
New  graces  her  fairness  adorning, 

Sweeter  still,  and  I  loved  her  as  well. 

Then  quickly  her  mirror  regaining, 
She  found  not  a  charm  out  of  place, 

As,  half  to  herself  complaining, 

She  wiped  off  the  tears  from  her  face. 


APPENDIX.  449 


Satan  fled,  and  the  fair  one,  my  booty, 
Left  me,  with  these  words  like  a  knell : 

"  The  girl  whom  God  makes  a  beauty 
Cannot  love  one  who  loves  her  so  well." 


THE  GAD-FLY. 

(La  Mbucfie.) 
In  the  midst  of  our  laughter  and  singing, 

'  Mid  the  clink  of  our  glasses  so  gay, 
What  gad-fly  is  over  us  winging, 

That  returns  when  we  drive  him  away  ? 
'Tis  some  god.     Yes,  I  have  a  suspicion 

Of  our  happiness  jealous,  he's  come  : 
Let  us  drive  him  away  to  perdition, 

That  he  bore  us  no  more  with  his  hum. 

Transformed  to  a  gad-fly  unseemly, 

I  am  certain  that  we  must  have  here 
Old  Reason,  the  grumbler,  extremely 

Annoyed  by  our  joy  and  our  cheer. 
He  tells  us  in  tones  of  monition 

Of  the  clouds  and  the  tempests  to  come : 
Let  us  drive  him  away  to  perdition, 

That  he  bore  us  no  more  with  his  hum. 

It  is  Reason  who  comes  to  me,  quaffing, 

And  says,  "It  is  time  to  retire: 
At  your  age  one  stops  drinking  and  laughing, 

Stops  loving,  nor  sings  with  such  fire ; "  - 
An  alarm  that  sounds  ever  its  mission 

When  the  sweetest  of  flames  overcome : 
Let  us  drive  him  away  to  perdition, 

That  he  bore  us  no  more  with  his  hum. 

It  is  Reason  !    Look  out  there  for  Lizzie ! 

His  dart  is  a  menace  alway. 
He  has  touched  her,  she  swoons  — she  is  dizzy; 

Oome,  Cupid,  and  drive  him  away. 
Pursue  him ;  compel  his  submission, 

Until  under  your  strokes  he  succumb. 
Let  us  drive  him  away  to  perdition, 

That  he  bore  us  no  more  with  his  hum. 
VOL.  I.  — 29 


450  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.  CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

Hurrah,  Victory !    See,  he  is  drowning 

In  the  wine  that  Lizzetta  has  poured. 
Come,  the  head  of  Joy  let  us  be  crowning, 

That  again  he  may  reign  at  our  board. 
He  was  threatened  just  now  with  dismission, 

And  a  fly  made  us  all  rather  glum  : 
But  we've  sent  him  away  to  perdition  ; 

He  will  bore  us  no  more  with  his  hum. 


FIFTY  YEARS. 
(Cinqitante  Ans.) 

Wherefore  these  flowers?  floral  applause? 

Ah,  no,  these  blossoms  came  to  say 
That  I  am  growing  old,  because 

I  number  fifty  years  to-day. 
O  rapid,  ever-fleeting  day  ! 

0  moments  lost,  I  know  not  how  1 
0  wrinkled  cheek  and  hair  grown  gray! 

Alas,  for  I  am  fifty  now ! 

Sad  age,  when  we  pursue  no  more  — 

Fruit  dies  upon  the  withering  tree : 
Hark  !  some  one  rapped  upon  my  door. 

Nay,  open  not.     'Tis  not  for  me,  — 
Or  else  the  doctor  calls.     Not  yet 

Must  I  expect  his  studious  bow. 
Once  I'd  have  called,  ' '  Come  in,  Lizzette  "  • 

Alas,  for  I  am  fifty  now  ! 

In  age  what  aches  and  pains  abound : 

The  torturing  gout  racks  us  awhile ; 
Blindness,  a  prison  dark,  profound ; 

Or  deafness  that  provokes  a  smile. 
Then  Reason's  lamp  grows  faint  and  dim 

With  flickering  ray.     Children,  allow 
Old  Age  the  honor  due  to  him  — 

Alas,  for  I  am  fifty  now ! 

Ah,  heaven  !  the  voice  of  Death  I  know, 
Who  rubs  his  hands  in  joyous  mood  ; 

The  sexton  knocks  and  I  must  go,  — 
Farewell,  my  friends  the  human  brood ! 


APPENDIX.  451 


Below  are  famine,  plague,  and  strife ; 

Above,  new  heavens  my  soul  endow  : 
Since  God  remains,  begin,  new  life ! 

Alas,  for  I  am  fifty  now ! 

But  no,  'tis  you,  sweetheart,  whose  youth, 

Tempting  my  soul  with  dainty  ways. 
Shall  hide  from  it  the  somber  truth, 

This  incubus  of  evil  days. 
Springtime  is  yours,  and  flowers ;  come  then, 

Scatter  your  roses  on  my  brow, 
And  let  me  dream  of  youth  again  — 

Alas,  for  I  am  fifty  now ! 


ROGER  BONTEMPS. 

To  show  our  hypochondriacs, 

In  days  the  most  forlorn, 
A  pattern  set  before  their  eyes, 

Roger  Bontemps  was  born. 
To  live  obscurely,  at  his  will, 

To  keep  aloof  from  strife^ 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps! 

This  is  his  rule  of  life. 

To  sport,  when  holidays  occur, 

The  hat  his  father  wore, 
With  roses  or  with  ivy  leaves 

To  trim  it  as  of  yore ; 
To  wear  a  coarse  old  cloak,  his  friend 

For  twenty  years  —  no  less  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps ! 

This  is  his  style  of  dress. 

To  own  a  table  in  his  hut, 

A  crazy  bed  beside  it, 
A  pack  of  cards,  a  flute,  a  can 

For  wine  —  if  Heaven  provide  it; 
A  beauty  stuck  against  the  wall, 

A  coffer,  naught  to  hold  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps ! 

Thus  are  his  riches  told. 


452  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

To  teach  the  children  of  the  town 

Their  little  games  to  play ; 
To  make  of  smutty  tales  and  jokes 

New  versions  every  day ; 
To  talk  of  naught  but  balls,  and  take 

From  scraps  of  song  his  tone  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps ! 

Thus  is  his  learning  shown. 

To  smack  his  lips  at  common  wine, 

The  choicest  not  possessing ; 
To  scorn  your  high-bred  dames,  and  find 

His  Marguerite  a  blessing ; 
To  give  to  tenderness  and  joy 

Each  moment  as  it  flies  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps! 

'Tis  thus  he  shows  he's  wise. 

To  say  to  Heaven,  "I  firmly  trust 

Thy  goodness  in  my  need ; 
Father,  forgive,  if  mine  has  been 

Perchance  too  gay  a  creed ; 
Grant  that  my  latest  season  may 

Still  like  the  spring  be  fair"  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps ! 

Such  is  his  humble  prayer. 

Ye  envious  poor,  ye  rich  who  deem 

Wealth  still  your  thoughts  deserving; 
Ye  who  in  search  of  pleasant  tracks 

Yet  find  your  car  is  swerving ; 
Ye  who  the  titles  that  ye  boast 

May  lose  by  some  disaster  — 
Hurrah  for  fat  Roger  Bontemps ! 

Go,  take  him  for  your  master. 


JOLLY  JACK. 
[Thackeray's  paraphrase  of  the  same  poem.] 

When  fierce  political  debate 
Throughout  the  isle  was  storming, 

And  Rads  attacked  the  throne  and  state, 
And  Tories  the  reforming, 


APPENDIX.  453 


To  calm  the  furious  rage  of  each, 

And  right  the  land  demented, 
Heaven  sent  us  Jolly  Jack,  to  teach 

The  way  to  be  contented. 

Jack's  bed  was  straw,  — 'twas  warm  and  soft ; 

His  chair  a  three-legged  stool ; 
His  broken  jug  was  emptied  oft, 

Yet  somehow  always  full. 
His  mistress's  portrait  decked  the  wall, 

His  mirror  had  a  crack ; 
Yet,  gay  and  glad,  though  this  was  all 

His  wealth,  lived  Jolly  Jack. 

To  give  advice  to  avarice, 

Teach  pride  its  mean  condition, 
And  preach  good  sense  to  dull  pretense, 

Was  honest  Jack's  high  mission. 
Our  simple  statesman  found  his  rule 

Of  moral  in  the  flagon, 
And  held  his  philosophic  school 

Beneath  the  "George  and  Dragon." 

"When  village  Solons  cursed  the  Lords, 

And  called  the  malt-tax  sinful, 
Jack  heeded  not  their  angry  words, 

But  smiled  and  drank  his  skinful. 
And  when  men  wasted  health  and  life, 

In  search  of  rank  and  riches, 
Jack  marked  aloof  the  paltry  strife, 

And  wore  his  threadbare  breeches. 

"I  enter  not  the  church,"  he  said, 

"But  I'll  not  seek  to  rob  it;" 
So  worthy  Jack  Joe  Miller  read, 

While  others  studi<xi  Cobbett. 
His  talk  it  was  of  feast  and  fun ; 

His  guide  the  Almanack  : 
From  youth  to  age  thus  gayly  run 

The  life  of  Jolly  Jack. 

And  when  Jack  prayed,  as  oft.  he  would, 

He  humbly  thanked  his  Maker  ; 
"I  am,"  said  ho,  "O  Father  good! 

Nor  Catholic  nor  Quaker. 


454        THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO.'S  BAGEHOT. 

Give  each  his  creed,  let  each  proclaim 

His  catalogue  of  curses : 
I  trust  in  thee,  and  not  in  them, 

In  thee  and  in  thy  mercies ! 

"Forgive  me  if,  'midst  all  thy  works, 

No  hint  I  see  of  damning ; 
And  think  there's  faith  among  the  Turks, 

And  hope  for  e'en  the  Brahmin. 
Harmless  my  mind  is,  and  my  mirth, 

And  kindly  is  my  laughter ; 
I  cannot  see  the  smiling  earth 

And  think  there's  hell  hereafter." 

Jack  died ;  he  left  no  legacy 

Save  that  his  story  teaches, — 
Content  to  peevish  poverty, 

Humility  to  riches. 
Ye  scornful  great,  ye  envious  small, 

Come  follow  in  his  track  ; 
We  all  were  happier,  if  we  all 

Would  copy  Jolly  Jack. 


THE  PEOPLE'S  MEMORIES. 

(Les Souvenirs  du  Ruple.) 

Ay,  many  a  day  the  straw-thatched  cot 

Shall  echo  with  his  glory  ! 
The  humblest  shed,  these  fifty  years, 

Shall  know  no  other  story. 
There  shall  the  idle  villagers 

To  some  old  dame  resort, 
And  beg  her  with  those  good  old  tales 

To  make  their  evenings  short. 
' '  What  though  they  say  he  did  us  harm  ? 

Our  love  this  cannot  dim : 
Come,  Granny,  talk  of  him  to  us ; 

Come,  Granny,  talk  of  him." 

"Well,  children  —  with  a  train  of  kings 
Once  he  passed  by  this  spot ; 

'Twas  long  ago  ;  I  had  but  just 
Begun  to  boil  the  pot. 


APPENDIX.  455 


On  foot  he  climbed  the  hill,  whereon 

I  watched  him  on  his  way ; 
He  wore  a  small  three-cornered  hat, 

His  overcoat  was  gray. 
I  was  half  frightened  till  he  said, 

'  Good-day,  my  dear  ! '  to  me. " 
"O  Granny,  Granny,  did  he  speak? 

What,  Granny  !  you  and  he  ? " 

"Next  year,  as  I,  poor  soul,  by  chance, 

Through  Paris  strolled  one  day, 
I  saw  him  taking,  with  his  court, 

To  Notre  Dame  his  way. 
The  crowd  were  charmed  with  such  a  show ; 

Their  hearts  were  filled  with  pride  : 
'  "What  splendid  weather  for  the  fete  ! 

Heaven  favors  him  ! '  they  cried. 
Softly  he  smiled,  for  God  had  given 

To  his  fond  arms  a  boy." 
"  Oh,  how  much  joy  you  must  have  felt ! 

O  Granny,  how  much  joy ! " 

"But  when  at  length  our  poor  Champagne 

By  foes  was  overrun, 
He  seemed  alone  to  hold  his  ground ; 

Nor  dangers  would  he  shun. 
One  night,  as  might  be  now,  I  heard 

A  knock  —  the  door  unbarred  — 
And  saw  —  good  God  !  —  'twas  he,  himself, 

With  but  a  scanty  guard. 
'  Oh,  what  a  war  is  this  ! '  he  cried, 

Taking  this  very  chair." 
"What!   Granny,  Granny,  there  he  sat? 

What  !   Granny,  he  sat  there  ? " 

"'I'm  hungry,'  said  he:    quick  I  served 

Thin  wine  and  hard  brown  bread ; 
He  dried  his  clothes,  and  by  the  fire 

In  sleep  drooped  down  his  head. 
Waking,  he  saw  my  tears  —  '  Cheer  up, 

Good  dame  ! '  says  he  :    '  I  go 
'Neath  Paris's  walls  to  strike  for  France 

One  last  avenging  blow.' 


456  THE  TRAVELERS  INS.  CO/S  BAGEHOT. 

He  went ;   but  on  the  cup  he  used, 

Such  value  did  I  set, 
It  has  been  treasured. "     ' '  "What !  till  now  ? 

You  have  it,  Granny,  yet?" 

"  Here  'tis ;  but  'twas  the  hero's  fate 

To  ruin  to  be  led  ; 
He  whom  a  pope  had  crowned,  alas ! 

In  a  lone  isle  lies  dead. 
'Twas  long  denied  :  '  No,  no,'  said  they, 

'  Soon  shall  he  reappear  ; 
O'er  ocean  comes  he,  and  the  foe 

Shall  find  his  master  here.' 
Ah,  what  a  bitter  pang  I  felt, 

"When  forced  to  own  'twas  true  ! " 
"Poor  Granny!  Heaven  for  this  will  look  — 

"Will  kindly  look  on  you." 


THE  OLD  TRAMP. 
(Le  Vieux  Vagabond.) 
Here  in  this  gutter  let  me  die ; 

I  finish  old,  infirm,  and  tired. 
"He's  drunk,"  will  say  the  passers-by; 

'Tis  well,  —  their  pity's  not  desired. 
I  see  some  turn  their  heads  away, 

"While  others  toss  to  me  their  sous. 
"On  to  your  junket!   run,"  I  say: 
Old  tramp,  in  death  I  need  no  help  from  you. 

Yes,  here  I'm  dying  of  old  age  — 

Of  hunger  people  never  die. 
I  hoped  some  almshouse  might  assuage 

My  suffering  when  the  end  was  nigh ; 
But  filled  is  every  retreat, 

So  many  people  are  forlorn. 
My  nurse,  alas  !  has  been  the  street : 
Old  tramp,  here  let  me  die  where  I  was  born. 

In  youth,  it  used  to  be  my  prayer 

To  craftsmen,  "Let  me  learn  your  trade:" 
"  Clear  out  —  we  have  no  work  to  spare ; 
Go  beg,"  was  the  reply  they  made. 


APPENDIX.  45? 


You  rich,  who  bade  me  work,  I've  fed 
With  relish  on  the  bones  you  threw; 
Made  of  your  straw  an  easy  bed : 
Old  tramp,  and  now  I  have  no  curse  for  you. 

I  might,  poor  wretch,  have  robbed  with  ease ; 

But  no,  better  to  beg  instead. 
At  most  I've  stripped  the  wayside  trees 

Of  apples  ripening  overhead. 
Yet  twenty  times  have  I  been  thrown 

In  prison,  —  'tis  the  King's  decree  ; 
Robbed  of  the  one  sole  thing  I  own  : 
Old  tramp,  at  least  the  sun  belongs  to  me. 

The  poor  —  is  any  country  his  ? 

What  are  to  me  your  grain,  your  wine, 
Your  glory  and  your  industries, 

Your  orators?    They  are  not  mine. 
And  when  a  foreign  foe  waxed  fat 

Within  your  undefended  walls, 
I  shed  my  tears,  poor  fool,  at  that : 
Old  tramp,  —  his  hand  was  open  to  my  calls. 

Why,  like  an  insect  made  to  kill, 
Did  you  not  crush  me  when  you  could  ? 

Or,  letter  yet,  have  taught  me  skill 
To  labor  for  the  common  good? 

Into  an  ant  the  grub  may  turn 
If  sheltered  from  the  bitter  blast ; 

And  so  might  I  for  friendship  yearn : 
Old  tramp,  —  I  die  your  enemy  at  last. 


EXTRACT  FROM  PREFACE,  PAGES  168-9. 

I  have  treated  it  [the  Revolution]  as  a  power  which  might  have 
whims  one  should  be  in  a  position  to  resist.  All  or  nearly  all  un- 
friends have  taken  office.  I  have  still  one  or  two  who  are  hang- 
ing from  the  greased  pole  ;  *  I  am  pleased  to  believe  that  they  are 
caught  by  the  coat-tails,  in  spite  of  their  efforts  to  come  down. 
I  might  therefore  have  had  a  share  in  the  distribution  of  offices. 
Unluckily  I  have  no  love  for  sinecures,  and  all  compulsory  labor 


*"On  the  fence,"  in  American  idiom. 


458  THE   TRAVELERS   INS.    CO.'S   BAGEHOT. 

has  grown  intolerable  to  me,  except  perhaps  that  of  a  copying 
clerk.  Slanderers  have  pretended  that  I  acted  from  virtue.  Pshaw ! 
I  acted  from  laziness.  That  defect  has  served  me  in  place  of 
merits ;  wherefore  I  recommend  it  to  many  of  our  honest  men. 
It  exposes  one,  however,  to  curious  reproaches.  It  is  to  that 
placid  indolence  that  severe  critics  have  laid  the  distance  I  have 
kept  myself  from  those  of  my  honorable  friends  who  have  attained 
power.  Giving  too  much  honor  to  what  they  choose  to  call  my 
fine  intellect,  and  forgetting  too  much  how  far  it  is  from  simple 
good  sense  to  the  science  of  great  affairs,  these  critics  maintain 
that  my  counsels  might  have  enlightened  more  than  one  minis- 
ter. If  one  believes  them,  I,  crouching  behind  our  statesmen's 
velvet  chairs,  would  have  conjured  down  the  winds,  dispelled  the 
storms,  and  enabled  France  to  swim  in  an  ocean  of  delights. 
We  should  all  have  had  liberty  to  sell,  or  rather  to  give  away, 
but  we  are  still  rather  ignorant  of  the  price.  Ah !  my  two  or 
three  friends  who  take  a  song-writer  for  a  magician,  have  you 
never  heard,  then,  that  power  is  a  bell  which  prevents  those  who 
set  it  ringing  from  hearing  anything  else  ?  Doubtless  ministers 
sometimes  consult  those  who  are  at  hand  :  consultation  is  a  means 
of  talking  about  one's  self  which  is  rarely  neglected.  But  it  will 
not  be  enough  even  to  consult  in  good  faith  those  who  will  advise 
in  the  same  way.  One  must  still  act :  that  is  the  duty  of  the 
position.  The  purest  intentions,  the  most  enlightened  patriotism, 
do  not  always  confer  it.  Who  has  not  seen  high  officials  leave  a 
counselor  with  brave  intentions,  and  an  instant  after  return  to  him, 
from  I  know  not  what  fascination,  with  a  perplexity  that  gave  the 
lie  to  the  wisest  resolutions?  "Oh!"  they  say,  "we  will  not  be 
caught  there  again  !  what  drudgery  ! "  The  more  shamefaced  add, 
"I'd  like  to  see  you  in  my  place!"  When  a  minister  says  that, 
be  sure  he  has  no  longer  a  head.  There  is  indeed  one  of  them, 
but  only  one,  who,  without  having  lost  his  head,  has  often  used 
this  phrase  with  the  utmost  sincerity ;  he  has  therefore  never 
used  it  to  a  friend. 


DATE  DUE 


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